Never Speak First
by commissioner
Summary: "I am Instructor Raban, and from this moment forward, you are the Ninety-Ninth Training Corps." There is perfect silence. Erna can only hear the dirt being picked up by the breeze, blown into dust devils. She halts her pacing. "Forget everything you've been told..."
1. Prologue

Erna adjusts herself on the cot chained against her cell wall. She digs her fingers into the mattress to test its thickness. It's so thin it could barely pass as a blanket. All in all, the prison cell that the Military Police have set her up with is not so different from the room that she rents in the city. The basement apartment that she rents from an unscrupulous loan shark is just as damp and cold, though it affords more privacy. It's only one of her homes, and not the one she'll be going back to when she's let go. The basement apartment is a last resort for when shit falls apart. It's a good hideaway. Not even the second in command of her operation knows where it is.

Erna won't be able to go there for days. When the MPs let her go they'll most likely trail her for a while. She'll stay with her underlings, hopping to a new place every night, laying low, being good. Until the MPs get bored and leave her alone.

She frowns at what she knows she'll need to do. She doesn't mind being somewhat on the run. It's that she's going to need to stay with people. The thought tires her. She finds people draining. Not because she's an introvert. She's certainly not that, but she can't be near people without watching and listening closely, trying to manipulate them at every moment. It isn't a relaxing past time. She views people as work, as a business. She's built a business off of convincing others to do what she needs for her, which just so happens to be breaking the law most of the time. Keeping people in line and loyal is tiring work, so she prefers to be utterly alone whenever possible.

So the only things making her very uncomfortable in her cell at the moment are her neighbors. She can hear them breathing, licking their lips, spitting. Fucking disgusting. The one across the way is looking at her. That's the worst. She can tolerate a lot of human filth, but not having control over when and how she'll be seen irks her more than anything.

"You're Erna Raban…" the grimy prisoner in the cell across from hers hisses. Erna can hear in his voice the amount of time he's been locked up. The cold, damp air is slowly destroying his lungs, making the former gruffness of his voice turn to a whiny, wheezing breathlessness.

"It's Miss Raban to you, worm."

He laughs to himself. "You're not so high and mighty in here, love. We're all equal down here."

He draws out the last word, his voice turning gravelly and grating on her nerves like mortar. She hears a few assenting murmurs from other prisoners who have started to listen.

"Love…" she spits. "I'll wager you haven't felt a loving embrace in many years. I don't expect anyone's touched you in a longer time than you've been locked in here." She makes her voice softer, pitying, sympathetic. And there is quiet as they all listen. She makes sure her volume is enough that most of the cellblock will hear her. "You lonely, sad thing, taking what comfort you can in the violent contact between your ribs and the guards' boots whenever they care enough to remember that you're alive down here." She pauses to quietly swallow the bile rising in her throat. "If you'll behave for me, love, I can restore you to what you used to be. You know my name, so you must know the extent of my organization?" She waits for an answer. The silence is penetrating. She won't be the first to break it. That would be defeat.

Finally, quietly, her neighbor across the way answers "..Yes…"

"Yes, what?" she says through gritted teeth.

"Yes, Miss Raban."

"Very good, pet." she praises as if the filthy convict were her own offspring. "Nobody," she says, "is ever equal."

Erna gets up and paces her cell a little. She listens to the silence, making sure all dissent is quiet. Making sure that they're ready to hang off of her every word.

"Right now," she says, "we're all beneath the swine who hold the keys to these cells. An unfortunate predicament, but here we are." She listens to the murmuring: people complaining and whining about the bloody guards, something to unite them. "But," she continues, "when I get out, I'll still be in the same position of power that I left. Can any of you wretched creatures say the same?" She waits. More murmuring. Grunting. Nobody raises a voice to tell her that she's wrong, because she is never wrong about people.

"I feel for you. I do." she says sweetly. "They keep you in here so long, everyone forgets you. Nobody's loyalty lasts, not even family's. Have any of you heard from your families in a dogs age?" she asks.

She hears sniffling in a cell on her side, somebody holding back tears. Good.

"Well I never forget. I value all who are loyal. If any of you want work when you get out, you can ask around for me. Life is cruel, but I am fair. You need only be good and I'll make sure you are always cared for. No more cells, no more lonely nights." She looks directly across the dark separating their cell doors at the man who had tried to shake her, now utterly entranced like a mouse trapped in the coils of a cobra.

"Does that sound nice, pet? All I need is your loyalty and once you're released to the city we'll put you back in a position where those lower than you will have cause to fear your displeasure. You'll be so much better than you would do on your own."

As if in a dream, the answer came slowly. "Yes, Miss—"

She stops him before he can finish. All she needed was the 'yes'. "You can call me 'Sir'," she says. Then, louder, "You all can."

There's an inconsistent, broken chorus of "Yes, Sir," and other oaths. Erna turns her back on the halls of the dank prison and faces the wall of her cell, rubbing her temples and frowning. There was a time when turning a crowd of hardened criminals to her side so quickly would have made her feel something. Now it just gives her a headache. She lets them go on for a minute. She lets them talk about what hell they'll raise for her. Only for a minute. Then, in a stern, booming voice, she commands, "Quiet down."

Instantly there is silence. She rewards their obedience with her sympathetic, honeyed voice again. "I'd like some rest."

All is silent for her. She swears they're even breathing more quietly. Nobody dares to cough, spit, or moan. Every prisoner tries to be quieter than his neighbor, hoping that she'll notice and reward him more greatly than the others.

Erna sits down on the cot again. She rests her head against the cold, stone wall behind her and she closes her eyes. She thinks of nothing. She only revels in the silence.

Not even when the guard opens the heavy iron door to the cellblock does anyone raise a voice. The only sounds to be heard are the clicking of his boots and the hiss of the oil lamp he carries. His pace is normal at first, and then it slows. He is unsettled by the quiet. Erna can picture him pausing to look into cells, making sure the prisoners are still there, still alive. She can see in her mind their eyes staring out at him, full of more fire than recent years can recall, stoked by her and her promises, and their grim, unmoving mouths; as if they were enchanted and their voices taken away.

The guard's steps hurry again. They sound panicked, almost. Then the rhythm stops abruptly, squarely in front of Erna's cell. She doesn't turn to look. She only keeps rubbing her temples and she says, "You may speak."

The guard, thinking she is daring to tell him what she will or will not permit him to do, opens his mouth to threaten her, but he is drowned out by a cacophony of prisoners suddenly shaking their bars, hissing, cursing him and the king and anything else they can think of.

"Cunning witch," he mutters to himself as he fumbles with the keys, the racket shaking his resolve. As he tries one in the lock, Erna stands up, her full height only amounting to probably 5 feet and 3 inches, but her demeanor more than making up for what intimidation her size cannot inspire.

She smirks at the guard as he tries another key and she raises her hands, palms open, to show that she's hiding nothing and not resisting. When he gets the lock open, the guard charges in and twists her wrists around roughly, trapping them behind her back in a pair of cuffs. She acquiesces silently. She lets the other prisoners make her threats for her as the guard pushes her out and roughly steers her toward the cellblocks exit. She waits patiently as the guard locks the door behind them. When he grabs her by the arm again, she asks, "Have I worn out my welcome that quickly?" She makes it sound innocent and regretful as if she's just been asked to leave a dinner party.

"Oh you're not going anywhere. Especially not after that stunt you just pulled."

"Stunt?" She stumbles a little as he pulls and then pushes her arm. "What stunt?" She asks when she has her footing.

"All that quiet and then all that racket."

"I didn't do a thing," she lies. "Are the prisoners not usually that expressive when you pay them a visit?"

He grumbles something, but says no more to her.

He escorts her up some stairs, but at the top he steers her right instead of left. Left would be where he'd take her to be processed if they hadn't found any charges that would stick against her. To the left is where they'd give her back her things and send her on her way. She doesn't know what happens to the right.

"Where are we going?" she tries to sound demanding, but she can't hide the apprehension in her voice.

The guard sneers. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

She would. Very much, in fact. She hates unexpected things. She likes to keep her universe very much in order and under her control. She can tell she won't be able to say anything to get him to tell her what's about to happen. He's taking pleasure in this piece of knowledge he has over her. But if she keeps her mouth shut, he'll tell her freely. She waits.

He marches her up a corridor, up another flight of stairs, and up to a large oak door. Before yanking her to a stop in front of it, he says, "The commander would like to have a word with you."

He makes a big show of pushing the door open forcefully, still trying to redeem his injured masculinity. Erna wonders how many more things he'll need to shove around before he can feel in control again. This is why she never promotes men very highly in her organization. They are emasculated too easily and then act like children trying to reprove themselves.

She gets pushed through the door and is nearly blinded by the sudden sunlight. As she blinks and tries to adjust, her guard helpfully grabs her by the shoulders and forces her forward, and throws her into a wooden chair.

She winces and makes a pained gasp though she isn't hurt. She's counting on one thing or another. Either the satisfaction of having hurt her will please the guard and make him soften a little, making him more open to suggestion, or it will achieve something with the commander she supposes is in the room, though she can't see anything yet. The title of commander suggests an older man who will probably be more sympathetic toward women.

"For God's sake, take the cuffs off, you imbecile."

Check.

"But Commander—"

"What did you think she was going to do? She's less than half your size and only a girl." He sounds more disgusted than sympathetic, but Erna will take it.

She leans over to give the guard space to unlock her handcuffs as the room comes into focus. There is very little furniture. It doesn't look like an office. There's only her chair and the empty one across from her. Maybe an interrogation room.

The other man, the commander, is a middle-aged, sharp and unpleasant looking man with dark hair and bony shoulders that look like they could tear through his coat. She looks for something telling in the military decorations he wears. Particularly, she looks to the patch on his left shoulder. As he turns she sees the unicorn. -Commander Brown-, she thinks to herself. -Head of the Military Police-.

She makes a show of rubbing her wrists as the guard takes the cuffs away.

"That will be all, Captain Dok."

There's sputtering behind her. Then indignation. "Sir, I know she doesn't look it, but she is dangerous. I don't think—"

"I don't give a damn what you think, Nile!" the commander roars. "You are dismissed."

Erna files the name Nile Dok away in her memory as the rat shuffles out of the room.

When the door clicks shut she smiles at the commander.

"I'm not really dangerous," she says humbly, as if it were a compliment.

"I know what you are, Erna Raban." he says darkly.

She blinks. She makes her lips into a little o, so innocently. Then she says, "I'm sorry, have we met? I don't remember you."

It's a ruse, a power move. She never admits when she remembers someone. She does, of course, know exactly who he is. She knows where he works, where he sleeps. She knows the names of his wife and all of his children.

"I am the commander of the Military Police, as I'm sure you well know," he glares at her as he paces around the empty chair, "and you are only a minor thorn in my side, a small time criminal, a petty gang leader barely worthy of my time."

Erna's brows narrow and she scowls before catching herself and making her face sweet again. "I do run a small organization," she admits. "I wouldn't call it a gang. I'd never do anything illegal," she emphasizes.

"No," he agrees. "Your cronies do that for you. You have them well trained, I have to admit. The rare times that we do catch them no amount of torture we put them through can persuade them to give you up."

Brown keeps pacing as Erna watches him closely. He goes to the window and looks at the street outside. He says quietly, wonderingly, "But you yourself never do anything illegal…"

Erna relaxes. She feels sure that this is all theater. Brown has nothing. This is all to scare her a little before they let her go again.

Brown turns on his heel abruptly and says triumphantly, "That is, until now." He wears a snide, knowing grin and Erna's blood runs cold.

She swallows down any words that she has the urge to say. She might only incriminate herself further. The Commander turns the empty chair around as if it weighed nothing and smugly he tells her, "We know all about the nobleman, Erna."

She snarls. She can't help it anymore. They should have left the cuffs on, because if this over-familiar pig uses her first name one more time she'll make him pay.

He straddles the chair across from her and goes on. "We have evidence, we have witnesses, and we have enough to put you down with barely a trial."

Erna sneers. "Why are you telling me all this, then? Go ahead and do it," she dares him.

He doesn't answer her question, which infuriates her. He continues to dance around his intent, saying, "Murder is a very serious charge, you know, and a nobleman no less. One of the king's inner circle." He clucks his tongue at her.

She wonders if maybe he's only trying to get a confession out of her. Trying to scare her into pleading guilty for a lesser sentence. She'll die before he gets that satisfaction. She spits onto the stone floor. "Fuck you, pig."

He seems to ignore the outburst, which only makes her more livid, but not enough to make her do anything stupid, yet.

"Murder is very serious," he goes on, "but not so serious that I can't make it go away if I want to." He stands up from his chair again and goes to the window. "I want to offer you a deal," he says.

"Like what? I suck your dirty little cock and you let me go?"

He turns again and wrinkles his nose in disgust. "You have a filthy mouth."

"You have a filthy mind," she counters.

He shakes his head. "That's not what I had in mind. I'm not so shortsighted. I look more towards the future."

"I'm more of an in-the-moment kind of girl," Erna answers seductively, because if she can get away with no charges filed and her full freedom and all it costs her is a moments worth of dignity and a bad taste in her mouth, then she'll take it.

He ignores the way she licks her lips and lowers her eyelashes by turning away from her again. "The offer I'm willing to make to you is military service, for the rest of your life," he pauses to let it sink in, "in exchange for your freedom."

"What kind of freedom is that?" Erna scoffs. "I'd rather suck you off…and that's saying a lot."

"Unfortunately, that's not an option. Though I can see what your guards think of the suggestion while you're waiting on death row."

She narrows her eyes and scrutinizes him and his body language as he looks out the window.

"You're fucking serious."

He is silent. Erna's eyes dart around the room. She is confused. "Why?"

Finally he turns and looks at her again. "At the moment, we have a high rate of enlistment. We don't need one more soldier," he muses proudly. "But we are short on competent people to train them. Without good training, there's not much use to the amount of soldiers we have. They're lazy, incompetent…not all of them, mind you, but a good amount are just useless."

He looks to her to see if Erna has anything to say on that. She bites her tongue.

"You, however," he says, "have been proven to inspire, to convince people to do things they never would otherwise. You have an authority over people who have never been swayed by all the authority of society. It's a new idea, but we think that maybe if we could use you, we would end up with a higher quality of service from our soldiers."

Erna grits her teeth until they hurt. "You would have me train sniveling teenagers in the fucking dirt? To serve your impotent king?"

"Yes," he says. "Using any method you think best. You'd be given complete creative freedom."

Erna stares into his eyes. They're so confident. He is so sure that she won't refuse. He's a dumb cow. They all are. Anyone willing to forfeit freedom in exchange for shelter and bread, no matter what rank they climb to be no better than livestock. She is the only one with any intellect, any pride, any worth. All the others, whether they're stupid enough to follow her or follow the king, they're less than dirt. And she'll be skull-fucked before she accepts an ultimatum from an imbecile.

"I choose death," she says very clearly. Her eyes smile as his face contorts in rage.

"Nile!" he shouts and the guard barges in all too readily.

"Yes, Commander."

Erna rolls her eyes.

"Miss Raban needs some more time to think about my offer. See that you…" he pauses for emphasis, "help her come to a wise decision."

Dok enjoys putting the cuffs back on her. She can tell. She struggles to stay as he tries to drag her out of the room. She shouts at Brown as he turns his back to her." You'll never break me, Brown! I only work for myself. I'll be fucking dead before I take orders from you or your halfwit king!" She takes a deep breath as Nile pulls her to the door and then she hooks the frame with her leg, fighting, because she has more to say. "I'd rather let you piss on my fucking grave! Scum! Sheep! I'll be freer in the ground than you'll ever be above it, you weak little worm!"

(Ten Months Later, Year 836.)

Erna runs her fingers through the part in her hair one more time. It's still warm from the flat iron. Her hair is tamed into a straight, jaw-length bob, shaved up in the back and angled downward. She presses her fringe of bangs through the flat iron one more time. Straight hair, she's decided, makes her look more severe than her thick spring curls.

She runs the hot iron under some water and leaves it in the sink.

On the way out the door of her one-room cabin, she picks up a pair of black, leather riding gloves. She hesitates before putting them on, standing directly in front of the door, holding up her left hand and watching it as her fingers flex and straighten three times. They shake slightly with a phantom pain. She's been able to will her brain to forget a lot of things, but her fingers stubbornly remember despite her. They remind her every day with their blackened nail beds.

She puts the gloves on every morning. Not to hide what happened from others, but to avoid the reminder to herself. To not catch a glance at the white cuticles and the black underneath. It hurts her to look.

She crosses a leveled plain of dust.

A soft breeze blows through the box canyon. She breathes freely and deeply with the satisfaction of being thoroughly herself.

Heels click together as she approaches. Fists cover chests where the heart is thought to be.

Her officers, or assistants as she thinks of them, because they are merely an extension of her will, stand at points around a perimeter that outlines four hundred new, utterly green recruits that are split into neat rows of fifty. They look so sincere. Some of them are even excited, with bright eyes and soft smiles, so proud of themselves for serving their king and humanity.

They have no idea who they are about to be fucking with.

Nico, the assistant she's decided that she favors most at the moment, hands her a clipboard that holds about twenty pages. Erna is a meticulous note-taker. Those notes used to stay in her head, but now, with hundreds of people to keep track of, she'll have to start getting used to writing things down.

"This is all of them?" she asks without looking up as she flips through the pages, giving them a cursory check.

Nico grunts in the affirmative. Erna likes that. He doesn't waste her time with words or, walls forbid, sentences.

"Dismissed," she tells him. It's his cue to go see to details, making sure things are ready. Things that she is too important for.

Erna paces down the first line, silently for a while, just looking at the young, fresh faces in their clean uniforms with the crossed swords of the Training Corps sewn onto their shoulders. For now she holds her clipboard behind her back. She lets their anticipation build. When she gets to the end, she turns back around on her heel. Only then does she start speaking.

"I am Instructor Raban. And from this moment forward, you are the Ninety-Ninth Training Corps."

There is perfect silence. Erna can only hear the dirt being picked up by the breeze, blown into dust devils.

"You have the distinction of being the first class of trainees to undergo a new, more comprehensive training regimen. I don't doubt that some of you have family in the military. They probably sat you down before your trip here and tried to tell you what to expect, to prepare you."

Erna halts her pacing. "Forget everything you've been told."

She smiles very slightly at the growing apprehension tangible in the air.

"The training that your elders finished has been deemed ineffective and their service all but useless. I was invited, specially by the head of the Military Police, to restructure the training regimen of the Corps in any way I see fit."

She raises her voice a little. "No longer will it be good enough for you to simply want to offer your heart to humanity, to serve your country, and your king. I have no use for your worthless hearts. I hate the monarchy with a passion. If you're smart, you'll keep the simpleminded patriotism that brought you here to yourself."

"What I want – what my job is to get out of you – is your blood, sweat, and tears. Good soldiers are measured by their skills, not by their weak, sentimental hearts. So I don't give two fucks about where your loyalty lies, because while you're here, you are answerable only to me. Here, I am your king."

"Unlike your predecessors, you cannot count on graduating in three years. I will keep you here for as long as I think necessary. I will hold you miserable little shits here until I deem you ready to put on your big boy pants and join the real world."

She gives them about fifteen seconds of silence and watches them squirm uncomfortably. She looks from face to face, daring any of them to make eye contact or to challenge her.

"For a start, we're going to get to know each other. When I get to you, you will give me your surname and you will tell me why you are here. Simple enough. It is difficult beyond measure to fuck up. Don't try to impress me."

She reaches the first person in the first row exactly as she finishes her sentence. He is grimacing, his face drawn with the pain of being first. Erna turns and stands squarely in front of him. He is about six inches taller than her. She tilts her chin upward to look directly at his face. He stares straight ahead, stock still, silent, panicked.

Erna grinds her teeth. "Do not. Make me. Repeat myself."

He swallows hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. "Um, Bo Rousse—"

His voice gets cut off by a gasp and a pitiful whine when Erna punches him swiftly in the throat. His hands fly up and he doubles over in a fit of coughing. Now that his neck is lower, Erna can grab him by the scruff of it and throw him face-first onto the hard ground.

As he rolls over and gasps for air, she tells him calmly, "We are not fucking dating, trainee. I don't want hear about your childhood, I am never going to meet your mother, and I sure as shit don't need to know your first name."

He still hasn't caught enough breath to apologize. She tells him, "We'll come back to you," and she steps over him to face the next one.

This one thinks he has it figured out. He salutes her, fist over his heart, and says loudly, "Faust. I am here to learn to be the best soldier I can be."

"What a pretty answer. You wanna talk sweet to me, trainee?"

The kid's face changes then from overconfident to unsure. He stammers, "Um, yes—I mean, no, ma'am."

Erna lets an amused breath through her nose. Very nicely she holds her clipboard out to him and says, "Be a good boy and hold my clipboard for me, sugar."

A bead of sweat falls from his hairline and trails down his forehead as he hesitantly takes the clipboard from her extended hand and brings it to his chest as if it could be a shield. With both of her hands finally free, Erna quickly grabs a fistful of hair on each side of his head, and forces his skull down to meet her knee. He falls to the ground and groans.

Erna, as she looks down at him, notices the blood forming a bright red spot on her white pants. Her knee must have ruptured his nose. She hears a few gasps down the line, but they quiet themselves when she connects her foot with the trainee's stomach hard enough to kick him onto his back, revealing his bloodied face.

"Tch." She leans down and opens her gloved hand. It might look like she's going to help him up, until she motions for him to hurry up by curling her fingers and says, "Clipboard."

Even as he is squirming in pain, he wastes no time lifting his arm and holding the clipboard out to her.

She holds it behind her back and again paces down the line, shouting loudly enough for everyone to hear. "Let's get one thing straight: I'm more of a man than you, you," she addresses the seventh and eighth trainees in the line, both male. "Or," she says, gesturing with her thumb toward the largest, toughest looking trainee, "This big fucker over here, who probably still breaks down in tears whenever he thinks about the family dog back at home wondering where the fuck his best friend went off to and why he abandoned him."

Under his breath, barely a whisper, she hears the trainee say, "No…Rosie…" and out of the corner of her eye she sees him begin to tear up.

"You will address me as 'Sir,' when you feel the need to refer to me as anything other than Instructor Raban. Is that clear?"

Silence.

She shouts louder, "I asked you all if that is fucking clear!"

There is a deep, unified chorus of "Yes, Sir!"

Her tone and demeanor change in an instant to an unsettling sweetness. "That's better." She turns and returns to the third in line. "Now, let's move on…"


	2. Nails

Nile Dok drags Erna down the hallway as she shouts a multitude of threats and obscenities, until she's out of Commander Brown's earshot anyway. Then her demeanor changes entirely, at once becoming calm and collected, she picks her feet up and walks quietly along with her escort.

After a moment, when he feels sure that her volatile tantrum is over, Nile tells her candidly, "I'm glad that you refused the Commander's offer."

"You sound excited to watch me rot in that dingy cell," Erna says dryly. "You're pretty easily entertained, huh?"

"Actually, I'm not," he says through his nose.

Erna begins to look forward to returning to her cell. It will be fun to play with the other prisoners until her minions break her out – and they will break her out – she thinks. She put a moderate amount of time and effort into convincing them that they can't survive without her, so they should be desperate to get her back right about now.

It may take time. She taught them and drilled them on all of the ins and outs of stealthily breaking into places with all kinds of levels of security, but still… the military police dungeons are a pretty tall order. They might decide to wait until her trial, if they're as smart as she hopes.

In any case, Erna is pretty good at waiting. She can be incredibly patient.

Nile's grip around her upper arm tightens as he steers her past the entrance to her cell block and toward another staircase.

"Where are we going?" she demands to know. He ignores the question and she says a little louder, "Take me back to my cell."

He makes no sign that he's hearing her at all until she begins to struggle. She tries to get out of his grip before they reach the stairs.

He stops her at the top step of the stairs and shakes her arm forward and back as if dealing with a difficult child. He leans over her, his mouth close to her ear, he says quietly, "You're never going back to your cell, Erna."

Erna struggles as hard as she can with her hands secured behind her back, but Nile is bigger and stronger than she is. Still, she hisses and spits like a cat. "Say my name again, filth," she snarls, "want to hear it die in your tight throat when I choke the life out of you."

And with that, he shoves her headlong down the stairs.

,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,,..,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,,..,,..,.,.,.,.,.,,..,,..,,..,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,,..,.,.,.,.,,.,..,.,.,.,.,,..,,.,.

Everything is black for some time.

Upon regaining consciousness, Erna is hit with a sickening wave of nausea, a sign of concussion. The next sensation she notices is a stinging pain in her left eye and from the sticky, dry feeling of the skin around it she guesses that she got some blood in it. Her head must have split open somewhere, but she can't move her arms to find where. So the nausea, she thinks, could be either a concussion, or just a symptom of too much blood lost… or both.

In any case, there's a metallic rattling and a resistance when she tries to move, so she knows she's chained down.

She ascertains all of these things by feeling and hearing because wherever she is, it's pitch black… or she's blind. She decides she'll find out. And the easiest way to find out is for her to yell to the darkness, "Hey, I'm fucking awake here, if anybody gives a shit!"

The acoustics make her think that she's in a small room with a high ceiling, but without all of her senses she doesn't trust her judgment. She'll wait and see if she can get some light to see if she's correct.

There's a sound like shuffling feet and then the sound is gone. Probably a guard has gone to tell someone more important that she requires their attention.

Erna sighs impatiently and starts counting in her head.

She counts out about four hundred and twenty seconds before she hears footsteps coming back, maybe more. She nodded in and out of consciousness once or twice while counting.

There's a high, squealing rusted iron scraping against stone sound that sets her teeth on edge and makes her feel a stinging ache under her tongue that she can only describe as a metallic feeling. Her fingers curl with their own phantom pain as the sensation travels through her whole body like electricity. She curls in on herself, closes her eyes and hisses in pain to which she hears her new guest give a low chuckle.

She blinks hard at the light he's holding and says, "Lovely to see you again, Nile," with a sarcasm that's honey-coated.

He closes the door to the room just as slowly as he opened it, setting off more spasms of psychological pain through Erna's teeth. She cringes again, unable to do anything or hold herself in any way that would lessen the reaction that sound sets off.

Nile smirks, mildly amused by her pain, as he hangs his lamp on one of many hooks set in the stone walls to cast its orange glow over the small stone-walled room. He doesn't return her greeting. Instead he gets right down to business, crossing the floor in three big strides with his long legs, and lifting her by the chain that links her wrists while he says, "On your feet."

An involuntary pained noise escapes her throat as her shoulders nearly get wrenched out of place. The dizziness she was feeling becomes more intense as he moves her and she finds it impossible to get her feet under her. Nile thinks that she's only being difficult. With an annoyed sigh, he drops her, the full weight of her making only a light thud against the floor, followed by a much louder thud as he drives his boot against her ribcage with a vicious kick. He says more loudly this time, "On your feet."

"Nnhh." Erna rolls to her knees. "I'm concussed, not deaf, you prick." Slowly, she drags her right knee up until she gains solid enough footing to push herself to stand.

She's disappointed that Nile doesn't respond to the insult. She always feels a little defeated if she can't get a reaction out of someone. But he ignores her words and moves behind her. As he unlocks her handcuffs she thinks she could kill him… but she'd be too weak to escape. And something else stops her, something that has less to do with logic. It's the fact that Nile is now an evil that she knows, which she likes much better than opening herself to something unexpected like a new assigned guard after she kills this one. So there's that, but there's also the unfortunate fact that she is endlessly curious, sometimes to her own detriment. Part of her says not to kill him just because she wants to see what he'll _do_ next.

She wants to study Nile, play with him, find what makes him tick, and then catch him in a moment of weakness and rip out his insides. That would be more fun than just killing him right now.

When her hands are free she lets them fall to her sides.

Without a wasted second, Nile comes around to face her, cuffs still in hand. He grabs the neck of her shirt and pulls. In her weakened state, she almost falls to the floor again. Rather than knock her over and go through the hassle of getting her back up again, Nile has a better idea and he lets her go so that he can pull a small knife from the inner pocket of his jacket.

Erna watches him with narrowed eyes, not backing away or flinching from the knife. Without emotion, Nile holds still the hem of her shirt and he cuts upward. When the knife reaches her bra, he tugs at it and cuts that in half too. After a couple more rough slashes he rips the rags off of her and lets them fall to the floor.

Erna sets her jaw, wanting to show him that she isn't humiliated in the slightest. She's been through too much. It would take more than one fumbling Military Police guard trying to get a look at her tits to make her feel violated. She rolls her shoulders and yawns before saying, "Is this your idea of foreplay, Dok?"

His face twists with rage and Erna smiles because now she's got a reaction out of him, but before she can truly enjoy it, he spins her around to face away from him and pushes her face first into the wall.

The stone is damp against her cheek. It smells of grime and mildew and earth. They have to be underground. She wonders if she was unconscious long enough for them to move her from the prison or if this is just a lower-level dungeon that she didn't know about.

Nile presses her body to the wall with his and pins her there while he reaches for something above her. Erna snarls, "If you're going to fuck me, at least have the balls to look at my face, you shit-eating little rat."

He grunts as he pulls down the chains he was reaching for and he takes her wrists in one hand and lifts them. The cuffs go back on and he attaches them to a chain that will hold them above her head.

Satisfied that she's secured, he then leans down to whisper, "I wouldn't stick my dick within an inch of any of your diseased holes."

That's some small relief to her.

He grunts close to her ear as he tugs at the chains one more time, testing their steadfastness, as if she weren't too weak to do anything but curse at him anyway.

He backs away and gives himself a moment to recover. She hasn't offered any physical resistance. She couldn't, half-concussed, bleeding, dehydrated, and beat to hell, but her words rile him up and exhaust him pretty easily. She's good with words. She hopes he'll go on being too stupid to gag her.

It's a minute until he calms down and his breathing is slow and even again. He clears his throat a little self-consciously. Erna decides not to say anything to get him riled up all over again, only because she wants to see what he plans to do or say.

From behind her, there's a small sound, a little bit, she thinks, like a rope unraveling. She tries to see what he's up to, but can only turn her head so far, so she gives up on that and rests her forehead against the wall.

Nile doesn't leave her wondering long. The second she feels the fiery sting across her spine and hears the sharp crack, she knows right away what it is. She inhales a little sharply as the pain pricks at her back, but as she exhales it turns into a soft laugh.

"If you're trying to torture me, Nile, a little signal whip isn't going to work."

He punishes her insolence with another lash, this one crossing the opposite way across her back.

As he keeps hitting her, the pain is easier and easier to ignore. She tells herself that the burning feels cool, the sharp stinging inflamed flesh simply isn't there. She wonders if maybe this works on other criminals. If it does, then they must not have ever known what real pain is. Compared to some other experiences she could remember if she cared to, Nile's braided leather whip is less than a mosquito bite. And all pain is – she tells members of her gang when she tests them – only a comparative experience. What you feel is only relative to what you've felt in the past. So, the more intense pain you feel – she usually says as if it's a favor when she's doing something horrid to them – the less future experiences will feel so painful.

Nile persists in whipping her as hard as he can. She thinks she can feel the wetness of blood in some places just before her skin goes numb.

She can feel his frustration. She assumes that he's done this before and gotten quite a different reaction. Erna laughs at the situation and then, deciding to have some fun with him, she moans and in as smooth a tone as she can manage she begs him, "Harder, Nile." As the whip stings her again, she writhes as if in pleasure and moans again, "Do it harder!"

She yelps and sighs like she would if he was fucking her and she wanted to put on a show. When the barrage of whip cracks stops suddenly, she whines as if she's terribly disappointed. She tries to turn her head around a little to complain to him, "I was almost there."

"You little bitch," Nile mutters under his breath. He drops the whip and yanks her cuffed wrists down from the chain holding them high above her head.

Her knees scrape the rough floor when he throws her down and though it hurts, she smiles because she's gotten under his skin again. That's worth almost any pain. He can hurt her, but that doesn't make him the one in control.

She lifts her head and talks at him as he walks toward the door. "There's no point in torturing me, Nile. What do you need? A confession?"

He opens the door and speaks to someone outside. Erna can't hear what he says, but she sees a couple of guards that had been outside scurry away.

"All you had to do is ask," she says cheerily. "You're going to kill me either way. I'll confess to whatever you want."

"That's the problem, Erna," he responds, irritation filling his voice, "I'm not going to kill you. I'd love to, but it's against my orders."

She doesn't believe him. "Do you need me to confess about the murder? I'm not ashamed about it. I killed that nobleman in his bed while he was under me. I wrapped my hands around his throat, held him down while he struggled, and I watched the life flicker out of his panicked eyes. It was lovely. If you could kill a person twice, I would have done it all over again."

That definitely draws Nile's attention away from the hallway. He sneers in disgust. He doesn't even think to close the door to the cell before turning around and coming back to her to deliver a vicious kick to her stomach that throws her onto her back. She winces and her eyes shut as her skin comes alive again with burning pain. She rolls as quickly as possible to her knees again, hoping she can save the cuts on her back from getting dirty and infected – a pointless goal if she's going to die anyway, but even as she resigns herself to that fate the instinct for self-preservation persists.

"Filth," Nile growls at her. "You _deserve_ death."

"Maybe," she hums carelessly. She's thought about her own death more than once, always knowing that this was a possibility. She had, in her dealings, always tried to keep a low profile, doing well enough for herself, but never going for anything too showy, too big, too likely to draw enough attention to make her a criminal with notoriety, knowing that too much fame would motivate the military police to do something about her. Killing the nobleman was too far apparently. But, she'd decided a long time ago, if she has to be executed, she won't mind so much as long as she can manipulate her executioner, not necessarily to convince him not to kill her, but to make them do it at her will, not theirs. As long as she can keep Nile infuriated and control how much of his temper he's losing, making him react exactly the way she expects, she still feels in control and that's a comfort to her.

He glares at her like one would look at a parasite just before crushing it.

She is about to say something to really make him lose it. She doesn't know what, but she feels it on the tip of her tongue. But before she can, a couple of guards come in the open door with a little table on wheels, like a doctor's table, and an assortment of tools. Another one comes in behind them with a heavy wooden chair, and Nile is distracted from his hatred for a moment.

Erna is picked up by her arms and put in the chair, again setting fire to the cuts and marks that the whip painted over her back. As they set to work removing the handcuffs and tying her arms tightly to the chair, she arches her back to minimize contact against the wood.

Nile picks up a very small, innocuous, triangular wedge of wood from the table and holds it up contemplatively. As she struggles, he tells her, "I was going to save this for much later, but…" he trails off.

"I don't understand," she admits. "Do you get off on this? I gave you a confession. You could just kill me now."

"You talk a lot, but you don't listen well, do you?" he says condescendingly. Then he says, "Brown only threatened the execution so that you'd comply with his plan to… _expand_ … the military's training practices. We could care less about that nobleman you killed or the dozens of other crimes you've committed through your proxies."

Nile picks up a pair of small pliers and hands them to one of the guards to hold over an open flame and he keeps talking to Erna, and becomes more and more pleased as the confusion grows in her eyes. "You were barely worth our attention, Erna, which I'm sure was intentional on your part. But still the military police are very observant and while your crimes aren't so impressive, we did notice that your underlings are very well-trained," he picks up a small hammer and holds it along with the little wooden wedge, "and they're incredibly loyal, much more than you normally see among thieves and thugs. We don't know how you achieved that, but we want you to now do it for us."

Erna clenches her teeth and glares at him.

"So I _can_ kill you, but that's only after every other method to convince you to accept Brown's proposal has been exhausted. He thinks that you'll be more useful alive than dead."

He nods at the two guards standing on each side of her and says, "Left hand first." On that cue they each put their hands around her left forearm and wrist, holding it down with as much weight as they can leverage.

"You can confess whatever you'd like to me, Erna," he sneers. "But it won't change your situation."

He doesn't explain what he's about to do. It's more fun for him to watch her eyes widen with terrified recognition as he places the pointed part of the little wooden wedge under the fingernail on her pinky finger.

Against all of her sense of pride, she pleads, "No no no no…"

Nile drives the wedge deeper and deeper under her nail with taps from the hammer and slowly lifts it from the nail bed. Erna howls so loudly that the guard holding the pliers drops them on the table to cover his ears. Nile gives him a mildly annoyed look as he wiggles the small wedge until Erna's nail is only hanging to some stubborn skin. Nile lifts the wedge, sets it on the table and takes up the red-hot pliers. He pulls the nail from Erna's finger ever-so carefully, but still the blood flows and covers Erna's nail bed in red as he tears the skin.

Her vision blurs with black spots, but she fights to stay conscious, gulping air and making pitiful whining noises.

Nile drops the tiny fingernail into a metal bowl. "So, what do you think about that offer now, Miss Raban?" he asks, his voice full of arrogant sarcasm.

Erna keeps gasping for air, struggling to keep his face in focus.

"I'll give you a moment to think." He begins to turn toward the table, reaching for the bowl of water there to clean his tools.

Erna arches her neck and spits, hitting him square in the side of his face before he can fully turn away from her.

The guard who covered his ears earlier gasps. Nile's face contorts with rage, but he says nothing. Slowly and methodically, he removes a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes his face. When finished, he takes a deep breath, composes himself, and says, "A simple 'no' would have been fine."

He doesn't give her anymore opportunities to surrender and stop her torture as he takes his time removing the rest of her fingernails. She screams loud enough to wake the dead the entire time. The pain is more than anything she's ever felt.

When he's finished, he goes and leans against a wall of the cell. He crosses his arms over his chest as he orders the guards to untie her. They take the chair out from under her, leaving her half-naked on the floor. The handcuffs go back on. The table is wheeled outside.

Nile tells her that maybe he'll be by to give her some water later. He makes no promises. He is the last to leave when the guards have finished.

Left alone in the dark again, Erna wails and rages until shock overtakes her and mercifully puts her to sleep.


	3. Coal

"Do you have a wife, Nile?"

She knows he won't answer either way, but she watches his eyes for the silent answer they'll give her. They do not flicker with memory. The corners don't wrinkle with worry for his mate's safety. He is unattached, but Erna will keep acting like she doesn't know that.

"A girlfriend?"

Again he doesn't answer. He's become good at looking like he isn't listening to her, but she knows he can't help but hear. He takes her hand and presses it palm down against the arm of the chair that she's chained to. He turns back to his worktable and stokes the brazier next to it.

"A boyfriend, maybe?"

She sees his shoulders tick with tension slightly. Which doesn't tell her a lot. He could be gay or he could be homophobic or he could just be uptight. Well, she knows he's uptight. She's gotten to know that much at least just from being around him every day.

"I've always preferred women myself." She looks down at the hand that he turned over. She looks at where her fingernails should be. Even looking hurts.

Nile still looks like he's ignoring her. Stubborn ass.

"Women are so much more intelligent, more resilient, I've found. Men are supposed to be stronger, but psychologically speaking they break so much more easily. You can do all manner of horrible abusive things to women and they just keep living despite it all. They're more twisted and dark inside afterwards, but they never show it outwardly. You can never tell how fucked they are unless you know how to look."

Nile takes off his jacket and puts it on the edge of the table. The room is getting hot on account of the brazier full of burning coals he has going. Or Erna is making him sweat. Maybe a little of both. She's hesitant to take full credit.

It's hard to watch him work, because then she can see it coming. She watches him pick up a rod of iron with a pair of blacksmithing tongs. She keeps talking so that she won't anticipate what he's going to do so much. The anticipation makes the pain worse when it finally happens.

"That's why, I think, women have so much more potential for cruelty than men do."

Nile stabs the end of the iron into the coals.

"Because you fuck them up and fuck them over so much and they just absorb all of it. They never break. They get all black and cruel inside instead."

He pushes the iron deeper into the brazier, stabbing to the heart of the heat.

"Men are simple… insecure. They break easy. Women just bend and transform into something new and quietly malicious."

The iron comes out of the brazier red-hot. Nile holds it up and looks at it for a second.

"I think it makes them a better fuck, personally."

He takes a step toward her. She keeps her eyes on his face. She tries so hard not to look at the molten iron, but as he lowers it she can't stop her eyes from fixing on it. She watches her hand flinch away as far as the chains will let it when the heat gets too close. She didn't tell it to do that. She hates her body's instinctive reactions. They're so cowardly. A sick moan makes its way past her lips as he grabs her wrist with his free hand, holding it still. He presses his palm over the back of her hand, splaying her fingers.

She closes her eyes.

She concentrates on her breathing, then on the screaming.

There are parts of the body that are more sensitive than others. Parts of the body that have nerve endings that are more hotwired directly to the brain. Anyone who's ever had a toothache can appreciate that.

Erna doesn't know if fingernails grow back. She hopes that they do. She's learned that they are very important things. That the skin underneath your fingernails is especially sensitive, that it's one of those areas with the most insistent nerve endings that send the strongest signals to your brain.

{As the red-hot iron poker is finally moved from her index finger of her right hand, her mind goes slightly numb. She can't take her eyes off the blackened and bloody nail bed of her thumb. It feels like it's going to fall off. In fact, she's sure it will. She's sure all of her fingers are going to fall off when Nile is done. He's on the pinky of her left hand now. She didn't even realize he'd continued to move on.}

When he drops the rod into a bucket of water it hisses and sputters.

Erna's breathing stutters. Gasps. It comes too hard, then not at all. Her eyes are wet when she opens them and she laughs haltingly.

"Look at that," she says with mad wonder. "You've made me cry."

Nile forgets to ignore her and he turns around to look. Quickly he checks himself and turns back around. He's not supposed to listen to her. "I don't think I've cried since…" she tries hard to remember, "Probably since I was six years old." She sniffs and lets out a stuttering breath that would be a sob if she'd let it. "I thought I couldn't anymore."

Nile leaves the poker to transfer its heat to the water. Meanwhile he begins packing up his other tools.

"Have I ever told you about my parents, Nile?" Erna asks. She knows he won't answer, but she pauses as if expecting him to. It's only polite to give people a moment to contribute to the conversation. "My mother was a small thing. I probably look like her. Except she was frail and quiet and anxious…and blonde."

Nile pretends not to hear. That doesn't stop Erna.

"I get my hair from my father. He had thick, black curls like me," she explains. She leaves Nile room to respond again if he cares to, but he doesn't.

"My father cleaned chimneys. He always came home smelling of ash and soot. He was a big man, and gruff, and loud. It was an odd pairing, because even the suggestion of a loud noise would make my mother jump and flinch. She so often reminded me of a scared little mouse, all meek and small and innocent."

Nile takes the rod out of the bucket of water and lays it on the table. He empties the water onto the brazier to put out the coals, stepping back so that the steam can't burn him.

"People thought my mother was so nice. I guess you tend to think that about quiet people. But she was also very cold. She didn't have any passion. She couldn't stand to touch me and after a while I didn't want her to anyway. On the odd occasions when she did feel it necessary to hug me for whatever reason, it felt awkward and sad."

Erna wills herself to not look down at her fingers, no matter how they hurt. Looking would only make the pain seem worse.

"My father, on the other hand, had enough passion for both of them. He was emotional, always…effusive. He could be so warm and loving when he wasn't drunk. He was very human. My mother was more like a wraith… a shadow against the walls, looking on silently while he beat me around the room at even the slightest provocation from my smart mouth. If I even looked at him wrong, which I did often, he would hit me until I started choking on my own blood. Oh, and if I cried? That only made it worse. He hated when I cried. He'd hit me harder, I'd cry more, and it would only make him angrier, and we'd go on like that probably for hours."

Nile has stopped moving. He's still facing the dying coals as if there is something interesting at the center of them.

"Eventually my eyes learned to stop their tears." Her voice becomes deeper with a quiet evil. "Pain is such an effective conditioning tool."

Erna's heart twists inside her chest. She's often lied to people. It's as easy as breathing. She wishes that she were lying, but no. She's going to burden Nile Dok with the truth.

"I was her only child and she never said a word. Never came to my defense. I don't know if she didn't love me or maybe she loved him too much… Maybe she already knew that I was a monster and I deserved it. It was hard to tell what she was ever feeling, if anything."

Erna watches Nile's shoulders move. One can tell so much from a person's shoulders. It's hard to keep them still. Even if a person is turned away, one can tell how they're breathing from the slight movement of their shoulders.

Nile is taking long, deep breaths.

"Maybe it's fucked up, but I loved him. I loved him, and I _hated_ her."

The steam is all but gone. The coals are out completely. There's nothing left to look at, but Nile doesn't turn his head. His eyes stay locked on the black and the ash.

"She didn't have to throw herself in front of me like a shield, but she could have _said_ something, don't you think, Nile? She didn't have anything to be afraid of. He never hit her. He never even thought about hitting her."

Nile raises a hand, makes a move as if he's going to reach for something on the table. His hand shakes with a violent tremor. He puts it back down at his side.

"He died when I was eleven, black lung and all. The smell of coal still makes me think of him."

She stops talking just to see what Nile will do if she gives him a moment to breathe. The tears have dried on her face now. She can feel them. Especially where they've washed over the still open cut on her cheek. A memento from days ago when she passed out during one of their sessions and Nile let her fall face first to the floor. The impact split her lip and her left cheek open. She should cry more often, she thinks. The salt water might keep the cuts clean, though it burns.

Nile recovers in the silence. He squares his shoulders and takes a step closer to the table. He reaches to the farther end of it and picks up a tin cup by its handle. Erna's stopped watching. She's tired. Then Nile's hand is in her hair, tipping her head back.

"Open your mouth."

 _-Isn't that what I've been doing?-_ She thinks, but she complies and lets her jaw go slack.

Nile tips the water past her lips and she wants to cry again, because it's never enough. The water he gives her only makes her go mad wishing for more. The inconsistent and paltry amounts of food she gets are fine. Her stomach has shrunk enough that a bread crust seems filling, and after a certain amount of starvation, the body stops sending hunger signals anyway. But she'll never stop being thirsty. If they'd leave her unchained she would lick the walls and the floor for the moisture on the stones.

He takes the cup away. Silently she swears to herself that if she lives, she'll kill him. Not for the pain he's caused her, but because there was one more drop of water in that cup she could have had.

"You're such a good listener, Nile," she says sweetly as he adds the tin cup to his box of tools. "I think this time together has been really good for us. I feel so much closer to you."

He turns swiftly and raises his hand to strike her. She doesn't flinch. She would welcome a new pain to distract from what he's done to her fingers. But something stops him and he retracts his hand. He has a look of disgust, either at her or at himself, and he says, "You know nothing about me."

Erna laughs. It's full of madness, but still a pretty laugh, like a clear bell that's just a little off.

"I know everything about you, Nile Dok."

He sneers and turns away.

"I know that you're not hard enough for this job. They should have chosen someone less intelligent and more venal. Your boss is a shit judge of character if he thought that you'd have the balls for this, because you, Nile Dok, are nothing but a well-meaning man who wants to serve his king and country well. That's why you joined the Military Police. Sure, you're a little fucked up, but there isn't a person in this goddamn city who I can't say the same of."

Nile hurries to break down the folding table. He can't leave it in here with her on the off chance that she could loosen her chains and break a leg off of it to use as a weapon.

"And when this is over, if you can manage to convert me to the cause without killing me, you're going to be rewarded with promotions, and you're going to find a wife, and you're going to have two or three brats, and you're going to be a passable father. Not the best, because you'll still be a responsible man who spends too much time at work, but you'll love your family fiercely and that'll be enough."

Her voice starts getting louder, more shrill. "But you better fucking kill me, Nile, because if you don't, I'm going to find that family of yours and I'm going to do things to them that you haven't even gotten creative enough to try on me yet."

Nile scurries to gather his things and he pounds on the door that the guards outside keep locked until he bids them to open it. He doesn't let them in here with her ever. He doesn't want her to be able to talk to them. While he's waiting for the door to open, she screams with what voice she has left, "I'm going to rape your wife in front of you and bleed your children out like stuck pigs for slaughter! But I'm going to let you live. I'm not going to fucking touch _you_ , Nile!"

He can't get out of there fast enough. The door slams closed again.

Erna smiles in the dark. Nile was in such a rush that he forgot to fasten the steel collar that stabs into her sternum and the soft flesh of the underside of her chin if her head tilts and nods while asleep. She hasn't slept in… Well, she hasn't slept since she was locked in here. She doesn't know how long that's been. She tries to keep track of the time by counting seconds, but that gets so boring. What does it matter how long it's been?

She passes the time in other ways, just to keep her mind active. She doesn't want to go too insane. She occupies herself mostly with facts and figures and numbers, not memories, which are unreliable and distorted; and besides she has few that matter to her anyway.

Silently, to herself, she recites snatches of conversation she's heard, the names of guards that she's been able to catch when they aren't careful enough to keep their stupid mouths shut. She takes stock of her injuries. Sometimes she recites the moral code that she made for herself a long time ago, outside these fucking walls, of which there are only three rules.

"Don't allow anyone to call you by any other name than that which you've given them. No terms of endearment. No nicknames," she whispers to the dark.

"Take care of only yourself, at the expense of all others."

"Never speak first."


	4. Recovery

Erna no longer feels any excitement when light cuts the darkness, slowly widening as the scraping of that metal door signals that something new is about to happen.

For a while there, she would at least perk up with anticipation, wondering to herself if she would get food or water, or, trying to guess what new torture Nile had in store for her. That spark of curiosity is dampened in her and all but snuffed out.

Every shallow breath she takes stings her chapped and bleeding lips as she tries to put things straight in her head. Thinking is hard without light to go by, she's found. In the dark, the brain wants to shut down and sleep.

But she needs a new plan.

The first plan had been: make them kill her. Which, to some, might sound like a terrible plan, but it was a point of principle. To her, control comes first. Survivability comes second. Not many people know that about her. It was thought, among the city's criminal circles, that Erna's strength was in how she stressed personal survival – not only for herself, but also for anyone she recruited.

She would freely tell people who joined her that loyalty is only good up to a point, but if they were in a situation where being disloyal would save their skin, then by all means they should think of themselves first, because she damn sure would be doing the same. She did very much believe that, but telling it to people bluntly like that was for control. Telling them to be disloyal for survival only made people want to be more loyal, and in the assurance that Erna would do the same there was a tacit threat. Save yourself if you must, because I'll also be trying to save myself, which means taking you out if you prove to be a difficulty. The control is subtle, but it's always there in everything that she does.

That is why she raged when the military police dared to tell her that she would work for them. Death is preferable to living with her control taken away…if she could control the way she died.

She doesn't think she's in a position to do that anymore. She tries to provoke Nile, to take the decision out of his hands and force them, but he's grown immune to her. He doesn't react, doesn't even flinch at the things she says.

When he does finally kill her, it will be because his Commander told him to, not because of anything within her control.

That's not okay.

Every breath is fire against her lips and heavy in her lungs. The damp air has by now wreaked havoc on her throat and lungs. Coughing in itself is a whole new torture.

She's emaciated enough that she won't be surprised if one of the next bouts of coughing breaks a rib. There is a trade-off, though. Something positive. Nile doesn't bother to chain her anymore.

She tries not to dwell on how much she's been through or how long she's been there. She tries to muster up some curiosity or anticipation for what might happen next, after she follows through with the first step of her new plan.

Several times she thinks she feels, from where she's lying on the floor, the knocking of footsteps reverberating from outside, but nobody comes in. It's the knocking in her chest that keeps tricking her. She pushes herself and sits up against the wall, her knees tucked into her chest.

Finally Nile ends her waiting and scrapes open that metal door as slowly as possible because he knows the sound of it kills her.

Erna's voice comes out cracking like dry leaves. She doesn't waste words.

He's only two steps into the room when she says, "I'll do it."

Nile pauses in turning to close the door. This is the first time in a long time that he's reacted at all to something she's said. He turns slightly to look at her, raising his eyebrows in disbelief, and says, "What did you say?"

She clears her throat before repeating herself. Her voice is less dry this time. "I'll do it. I give up. I'll do the training."

She hopes he won't ask her to repeat that, because that's about all the voice she thinks she has left.

Nile does not react in the haughty, gloating way she expected. Instead he nearly crumbles. He drops the keys, not even seeming to notice the tinny racket they make when they hit the floor. His arm shoots out to the wall to balance himself as he shakes with horrified relief, like somebody who just survived something truly traumatic.

Erna tilts her head as she watches him. He looks like he might cry. She hadn't guessed that his job took such a toll on him. It doesn't do anything to garner any sympathy from her, in any case.

Nile doesn't speak to her again. He recovers himself and steps out the still opened door. He says something that Erna can't hear to the guards outside and he leaves.

If she could, she would scream and ask him where the fuck he thinks he's going. Why should he get to leave now when they've been through so much together?

One guard puts a blanket around her shoulders, wrapping it around her twice. The other picks her up like she weighs nothing – which, by now, she probably doesn't – and carries her bridal style out to the corridor. She closes her eyes. She doesn't remember ever having been carried before. It's a strange feeling. It's not comforting like she thought it was supposed to be.

She's transferred to a hospital to recover. She gets her own room. The first week is like a whole new torture where they swear they're helping her as they swab cuts with alcohol and pierce open the ones that have abscessed. They give her small things to eat and drink every few hours to acclimate her body to food again.

There is at least one guard posted outside at all hours of day and night. They still don't trust her. There's a rule that a guard needs to be present anytime a doctor or nurse is in the room with her. They think that she'll manipulate someone into helping her escape. The idea hadn't occurred to her until she realized that was what they were protecting against. Escaping is no longer part of the plan. She has grander plans now. They're nebulous, but there is one component that she's sure of: she's not going back to what she did before.

Commander Brown doesn't come to see her until the sixth week, when she's filled out some more and isn't so miserable to look at. He, she notes, looks exactly the same as far as she can recollect the last time she saw him.

"Glad to see you've come to your senses and are recovering well," he says.

"They say it takes three months to recover from starvation," Erna responds matter-of-factly. It was something that she noted when the nurse told her, only because that meant that they knew the average recovery length from having done this before.

"Yes, well," he says, "I'd like to talk about what you're to do when you are fully recovered."

Erna's never had a job interview before, but she gets the feeling that this is what one would sound like. It makes her want to laugh.

"To make this happen as quickly as possible, you'll have a tutor here to catch you up on every aspect of military protocol and regulation. When you're well enough, you'll get two weeks of private instruction with the maneuver gear."

"Is it that easy to learn?" she asks skeptically.

"Maybe not, but we take it that you catch onto things quickly."

She smirks at him.

"After that, you'll be officially enlisted and you'll serve six months with the Survey Corps."

"That's not what I agreed to." This is where she would like to draw the line. The Survey Corps is for the suicidal. The whole point of going along with any of this was to not die.

"It's the fastest way to get you proficient and familiar with what will be important to the people you train."

"If I fucking survive," she adds.

"If you survive," he agrees. He runs his fingers over his goatee. "We have faith that you will."

It would have to be faith. There's not much logical reason to believe that she would survive.

"And then," he rests his hands on his knees, "You'll take over as Instructor for the Southern District Training Corps."

"And that's it?" she has to make sure. She has to try to get anything else he might be hiding.

"That's it."

"What's the vacation pay like?" she asks sarcastically.

"You'll be able to take breaks whenever the trainees are given R&R time. The only condition to that is that you're not going to be allowed inside Wall Sina ever again."

Erna pouts. "I thought you trusted me."

"To an extent," he says. "Your communication will also be limited. You'll only be able to write or talk to military personnel. You're cut off from your gang or associates or whatever you like to call them."

"I'm done with that," she says.

"Good to hear." He doesn't sound like he believes her.

"So that's all?" she asks.

"That's all. You're going to live a relatively peaceful life with a steady paycheck, shelter, and food."

Peaceful, she thinks.

She doesn't really do peaceful.


	5. Dance

Trigger WARNING: Vague mentions of past sexual abuse. DD/lg play in a very not healthy way. Not knocking safe, sane, and consensual age play…this just isn't that. Much dubcon. Do not read if these things are triggering for you or typically make you uncomfortable. If they do, you probably shouldn't read this story anyway. (Lucifae is giving herself props since author-lady probably won't. good job, me.)

It is only her second day in and Erna has decided that the Survey Corps is not for her.

It's not the nature of the job or the military structure itself, though she's not a big fan of those aspects either.

They won't let her smoke.

The second Shadis caught her lighting up the first day, he chewed her out and she had to stand there and take it silently. He had two squad leaders turn down her bunk and throw out all of her cigarettes and matches. Apparently there is no smoking in the Survey Corps.

Which is bullshit, she thinks. Death is an ever-present threat looming over her for as long as she wears the wings of freedom. Even criminals about to face the firing squad are offered a shot of vodka and a cigarette before their execution.

What a joke.

She sits on an overturned crate against the outside of the stable. She's on stall cleaning duty until further notice. Two days and she's already on Shadis's shit list.

Her shoulders ache. Two weeks of training with the 3D maneuver gear did nothing to prepare her for cleaning stables.

She rolls her neck as far as she can from one side to the other. There's a pain that feels the way that knocking on tin sounds. Sharp. Metallic. It's a muscle knot in her left trapezius. She needs to drink more water…and see if she can manipulate someone into giving her a backrub.

Those are plans for later. For right now her concern is only making sure that no one can see her. She checks, then listens. When she's sure that nobody can see or hear her, she hops off of the crate, squatting down and lifting it up just enough to reach under and feel around.

They found her cigarettes, but not the rolling papers and tobacco that she used to make them.

She gets back up onto the large wooden crate, crossing her legs in front of her she takes a rolling paper and props it gently between two fingers. She rolls a cigarette that's much thicker than she normally would to compensate for the fact that this will be the only one she'll get to enjoy today.

It isn't until she's licking it sealed and anticipating how good it's going to feel that she realizes she doesn't have any matches.

A desperate whimper escapes her throat as she pats her pockets down just in case. She might have one hidden that she forgot about. She opens the tin that holds her tobacco and curses herself for not having the foresight to add matches to the stash.

She knows in the back of her mind. The only matches she had got tossed with her bunk.

Defeated, she places the cigarette between her lips anyway as a placeholder while she tilts her head back against the side of the stable and tries to figure out how the hell she's going to light it without a match.

She's so fucking tired. All she wanted was a cigarette. How unfair. She wonders what she would need to fuck up to get placed on kitchen duty. There have to be matches there.

While she's looking up at the clouds and feeling very sorry for herself, she lets her guard slip. She should have heard the two sets of footsteps coming around the corner before she heard a man's voice.

"Finished for the day?"

She flinches and reaches for her contraband, but then pulls back. She's caught anyway. No point in hiding anything.

She narrows her eyes on the two intruders who have broken her relatively peaceful moment of desperate and sorrowful contemplation. They're both fucking huge compared to her. One is clean-shaven with blond hair and bright, curious blue eyes. The other, taller man is a shaggy sandy blond with a bit of stubble giving him a less clean cut look than his friend.

Instead of answering the question and stating the obvious, she cuts right to the chase. "Are either of you officers?"

"No," the shorter man says. "Regular soldiers like you."

"Good."

"You shouldn't smoke," he says, gesturing to the cigarette between her lips.

"I'm not smoking," she points out.

He smirks. "Fair enough."

She eyes both of them up and down. She tries to decide if either of them looks like they would be good at giving shoulder massages.

"I'm Erwin," the clean-cut blond says. "This is Mike."

Erna looks at the taller one again. "Does he talk?"

"Not much," Erwin says for him and smiles good-naturedly at her.

Erna looks Mike up and down. He's not one for words or facial expressions or seemingly anything that would give away anything that he's thinking or feeling. He's guarded. She can respect that.

"Erna."

"Nice to meet you."

Erwin's eyes are intense. She doesn't like the way they seem to try to be looking past her mask.

"Were you looking for something? Or…?" she trails off.

Erwin brings his hand to the back of his neck shyly and smiles. "Just wanted to get to know the new recruit. I'm naturally inquisitive. Some people consider it a character flaw."

She can tell that he's faking. The shyness. This man's never felt shy about a damn thing in his life. He's trying to be approachable and charming, trying to disarm her. She wonders why.

He pauses, giving her space to respond. She won't. She sucks a little on the unlit cigarette in her mouth. She waits and revels in the awkward silence. She loves awkward silence. It makes a person uncomfortable, which causes them to say more than they should.

He doesn't seem to get uncomfortable. He waits a polite, but not overeager seven seconds before he says, "What brought you here?"

Her coaching and preparation for this assignment hadn't really gone over whether she was expected to lie or even how to lie plausibly when people asked her about herself. She doubts they would want her telling the truth, but, not knowing what would make a good lie in this situation, she keeps her answer as vague and dry as possible.

"Wanted a change of scenery."

"Where did you transfer from?"

She knew that this would be a problem. The timing. There shouldn't be any new recruits this time of year. They aren't going to believe that she just graduated the Training Corps and enlisted. The current corps of trainees won't graduate until later this year.

"Ehrmich." That's where she grew up. That's where they caught her. That's where she was tortured for months. It's as good an answer as any.

"Oh, so you were in the Military Police?"

She doesn't like how closely his eyes scrutinize her as he waits for her answers. He is too curious.

"Yeah."

"We have a friend who joined the MPs. Maybe you've met him? Nile Dok."

She gets the feeling that he was only trying to get her guard down by speaking more casually rather than continuing with the barrage of direct questions. He doesn't know that he just tipped his hand too far.

"Nile and I were good friends," she says. "How do you know each other?"

"We grew up in the same district. Went to the same training camp and graduated together. I haven't seen him in a long time. How is he?"

"I'd say life is treating him well." She doesn't really know that. It can't be untrue, because she hasn't found him; therefore his life is still intact. She hasn't been able to get any information on the fucker. The Military Police were very careful about hiding him away somewhere once she was released.

She makes her voice warmer to let him think that he's got her. She acts like her guard is down and that her suspicion is eased by the small talk. "What district?"

"Inside Ehrmich."

"That's where I grew up."

"Oh?"

She looks at both of them a little skeptically now. "I doubt we were ever in the same circles."

"What makes you think that?" he asks. She notes how charming he makes himself. He's probably very popular with men and women alike. She's not sure, but she thinks he may be faking his warmth. He may be calculating like her.

She takes the cigarette from her mouth finally, now that she's about to use her lips for something longer than a terse sentence or two. "Your size. Those muscles. You had enough to eat during your developmental years… more than enough protein too. Your parents were well off."

Erwin looks a little surprised. Only for a moment. He gives her a sheepish grin and says, "You're very smart."

She doesn't know about that. She's observant. She's had to be. She never could have survived this long without being able to accurately read people.

So she shrugs the compliment off.

"Do either of you have any matches?"

In Erna's mind, there are three types of people. There are truly evil people – cruel, venal, psychotic, fucked up. There are truly good people – she knows them by their overall relaxed demeanor. They have almost no anxieties, very few insecurities, and a moral compass so strong that they can decide when it is okay to break the rules in order to do something right and good. Then, somewhere in the middle are people who are trying very hard to be good because they know that they have the potential for cruelty inside them. She's found that these people follow authority a little more for the sake of it. They're wary of breaking rules. They try so hard to do the right thing that sometimes they end up doing more evil than they would if they'd just relax about it.

Erwin looks uncomfortable at the idea of helping her break the rule about smoking.

He tenses up.

She thinks that he falls somewhere into the middle category of people.

Mike doesn't even blink, doesn't seem to care at all about breaking a rule that doesn't make sense. He reaches into the inner pocket of his tan jacket and comes closer to hand her a box of matches because her smoking hurts no one.

He falls into the category of truly good people.

As she strikes a match and lights her cigarette, she doesn't know how she's going to use that information that she just gained, but she files it away nonetheless.

Mike doesn't step back after giving her the matches. He towers over her, and she thinks he leans in a little and inhales deeply. He only takes the smallest step back when she exhales her first drag of sweet smoke.

He finally speaks to ask her in his deep, gruff voice, "What happened to your fingers?"

He might actually be the sharper of the two. A disconcerting thought, as he's also all but unreadable.

She holds out her hands, cigarette held between two fingers of the right one. Her fingernails finished growing back completely only a month ago. The nails themselves don't look any worse than the previous ones did before they were brutally pulled out. They might even look better. The unfortunate thing is that the nail beds underneath them are permanently burned black. It makes it look to most people at a glance like she is wearing black nail polish.

Looking brings back the pain. She'll never forget the feeling. It floods her mind and she can't come up with a good lie or even suppress the wince that makes her eyes squint and her lips tighten into a thin line for only a moment.

"Nothing."

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

Erna adapts quickly. She never gets caught smoking again, though she's had to cut down to one cigarette a day and sometimes not even that. She keeps her head down. She prefers not to have to take the verbal lashings that Shadis gives out, but if she has to, she does so with a straight face all while she imagines gouging out his eyes.

The only way in which she stands out is in that she keeps to herself. That seems to be an unusual trait among Survey Corps soldiers. In the beginning, they could chalk that up to her being new, shy maybe. Lately she's had to be more sociable in order to not attract unwanted attention or suspicion.

She is warm with her other squad members. She plays the part of being a little unsure of her abilities, a little shy. They fucking eat it up. They think that she's cute. That's an advantage her size and delicate bone structure has always given her. She can easily be unassuming and non-threatening when she wants to be.

She only needs to do this for a while. It's so that nobody will keep a guard up with her while she's still assessing the people that surround her. Once she has a good read on everyone, when she feels like she can predict their reactions and knows their motivations inside and out, then she can go back to being more herself.

Erwin and Mike are not part of her squad. They're assigned to a different squad leader. It's just as well, because they make her slightly uncomfortable. They're too smart…too observant…and too curious.

She likes to control when she will see them. She makes sure that neither of them can ever find her when she doesn't want to be found.

She doesn't avoid them completely. In fact, she is more attentive to them than they probably realize. She tries to keep an eye on Erwin. She wants to figure out his routine. Wants to know when he showers, when he eats, how he trains. He's curious about her…enough that he isn't going to let it go. His curiosity could be a problem for her, depending on how much he's going to be able to ascertain about the circumstances of her enlistment.

Mike, she is less worried about. He doesn't seem so inquisitive, though he is naturally incredibly sharp and observant. If he pays her any attention, it's only because his curiosity was piqued by his friend's unrelenting interest in her.

She keeps a mental list of things that she needs to find out from Erwin and Mike.

1) How long ago did they leave Ehrmich? This will give her an idea as to whether or not they could recognize her name from any murmurings or gossip about criminal activity in the district.

Brown had told her she should change her fucking name, but she'd told him that he could have it over her cold, dead body. Her name is precious to her. That's her stubbornness biting her in the ass. He was right. Her name may be recognizable to anyone familiar with criminal organizations inside Wall Sina, despite the low profile she always tried to keep.

2) What is their relationship with Nile? This is of paramount importance to her. Getting an accurate location for the prick from these two would be much, much easier than trying to do that research through military files.

If they're good friends with Nile, like Erwin said, then she wants to be friends with them. She has plans for Nile. She might take years to act on them – that sort of depends on how his life pans out. But if they have a connection to him, then Mike and Erwin are people that she wants to keep in her back pocket.

The rest of her list regarding them is not much different from the things she wants to find out about everyone around her. What are their motivations? What are their dreams? How can she bend them to her advantage? How could she break them if necessary?

She's made it a habit to sit with them when they eat in the evening. The day-to-day schedule isn't terribly strict under Shadis, though his other asinine rules are held very strictly. People eat when they can, getting whatever is available from the kitchen. They train when their squad leader tells them they will. They socialize in between those moments.

Erna would change that if it were up to her.

The dining area is loosely defined as well. One can take their meal in the kitchen, or in the dining hall, or in the courtyard outside of it in nice weather. Everyone likes this arrangement but her. It makes Erwin and Mike more difficult to find on any given day, and it makes it harder to make it look like she wasn't seeking them out.

"Is that all you're having?" Erwin asks her as she sits on the bench across the table from him, referring to the hard roll of bread in her hand.

"I don't need much," she says sweetly. She never got her appetite back after months of starvation. The doctors said it might be like that. They mentioned something about eating disorders commonly developing in people whose bodies endure a starvation period.

She lets him make small talk. He's good at it. Better than she would be. And she watches him closely.

She always sits next to Mike, across from Erwin. She doesn't need to watch Mike. She knows that he will always be unreadable with his stubbornly stoic, inscrutable expression. Smith she can read. Not as well as she can other people, but she can at least see that, while she's scrutinizing him, trying to look past that charming façade, he's doing the same to her.

One day he asks, "What made you want to leave the Military Police?"

"I realized it wasn't for me."

"It's certainly a safer assignment than this."

She makes an appeal to his altruism, to the part of him that wants so badly to do good. "I wanted to do more for humanity."

What a fucking joke, but she delivered it well. He smiles, but it's the same slight, warm, and possibly fake smile he makes anytime he's trying to charm someone into dropping their guard, so she isn't sure if he bought the lie.

He's a difficult man to get to know. She never sees him fully let anyone in…except for his friend, Zackarius. Nobody else thinks of him as difficult, because he puts up a front of being friendly, helpful, excessively charming, and he's handsome as hell.

People notice less when attractive people have odd traits. Nobody but her seems to see his intense curiosity and slightly morbid need to know everything, to pick apart anything that seems to be a puzzle.

The way he looks at her…she knows he sees her as a puzzle.

When a week or two of trying to form a friendship isn't getting anywhere, she switches to trying to flirt with him. Romance or lust is easier for forming quick attachment and trust than friendship. It's harder to fake friendship. She can fake wanting to fuck him. She can fake infatuation pretty goddamn well.

Whenever she has time and privacy, she practices her smile in a hand mirror that she borrowed from one of her squad members. Facial expressions are like any other skill that requires physical coordination. You need to practice, get the muscle memory down. Do it consciously and do it right until the brain maps out the nerve signals to form a shy smile and can do it more automatically.

That's how it works for her anyway.

She has a nice laugh. She's lucky that way. That would be harder to learn. But when she does decide to laugh, it's sweet sounding, like a little bell. It sounds innocent. It makes people feel warmly toward her. She uses it sparingly, only slightly, acting like she's trying not to snicker when he makes a lighthearted joke with a wink and a smirk.

She makes her eyes bigger when he's around. She doesn't know why, but that's what infatuated people do, she's noticed. She thinks it's fucking stupid, but whatever.

Her body finds its way more and more into the edge of his personal space. She sits next to him instead of across from him. She touches him just barely sometimes, lightly. Sometimes her hand finds his bicep; sometimes her fingers trail over his forearm.

She makes seemingly innocuous observations. She tells him that he smells good. She asks him how he got so muscular. She says that she feels comforted around him, that she feels safe with him.

She resorts to batting her long black eyelashes.

He infuriates her…sickens her…

Men are supposed to be easy. They are supposed to predictably think with the head between their legs. He should have tried something by now. She's starting to suspect that he might want actual romance, a slow build. She has the time for that, but not the patience.

Or he could be gay. Normally she's good at reading sexual orientation in people, but maybe she got this one wrong.

After two weeks of acting like a pathetic, lovesick little kitten, she's fed the fuck up. Her patience for it is all gone. That night she clings to him longer than usual, late into the night they talk. Long enough that at some point, Zackarius, who she swears is something like Smith's bodyguard, leaves them for the comfort of his bed.

She doesn't need to do any convincing. Erwin naturally offers to walk her back to her room. He's a gentleman like that.

He doesn't tense up when she puts her hands around his bicep and clings to him while they walk. That's not a good sign for her. People naturally tense up a little when they're excited or nervous.

She wonders if he's like her…unable to feel nervousness.

Her hands release his arm when they reach her door. She trails her fingers down to his hand instead and holds it. He only just starts to look a little apprehensive. She looks up at him with her big, grey-blue eyes, and she goes for broke. "You're terribly handsome, you know?" she hitches her voice just half an octave deeper, just so that her intent is clear.

"Erna…" his lips frown slightly and his eyes tick away from hers. He looks troubled.

It makes her nauseous when he says her name.

She raises a hand to his muscular chest, splays her fingers, touches him comfortingly, and looks up at him with worry. "What's wrong? Is it me?" She looks down at herself doubtfully, like he just told her that she's not pretty or something equally stupid. She pouts and lowers her eyelids as if she cares very much how he feels about her. She blinks rapidly, trying to force her eyes to tear up.

"No, of course not." He squeezes her hand and flashes her that warm, charming smile. "It's just… we can't… the rules…"

She takes her hands off of his chest and out of his grip. She wants to stomp on his foot and tell him to stuff the fucking rules up his tight ass, the difficult, stubborn, straight-edged prick. In her head she does just that. Outwardly, she pouts and says quietly, "I see…"

"I'm sorry."

Still, she can't tell if he really is or not. After all this time she doesn't know if he's ever being genuine, or if he is playing with people like she is. She wonders if he practiced that smile in the mirror just like her.

"No, I'm sorry," she says. "I shouldn't have put you in that position." She squares her shoulders a little like she's putting up a brave front despite a broken heart. She turns away and grabs the doorknob like she's trying to get away quickly so that she can go feel sorry for herself and lick her wounds. "Good night."

Due to lack of space, Survey Corps soldiers are housed about four to a room, two bunk beds each, so she tiptoes in quietly so as not to disturb any of her sleeping roommates. Her bunk is the top one on the right side of the small room. She barely ever sleeps in it anymore. She strips her clothes off in the dark, hanging them over the foot of the bed and she creeps stealthily into the lower bunk.

Her arms wrap around soft flesh. The woman sleeping there moans softly and Erna shushes her, reminds her to be quiet so that they won't wake the others.

She chose this one because she has long, red, corkscrew-curly hair. She likes redheads. They look wild and innocent at the same time, especially when they're on top of you riding your fingers.

Her name is Aoife and she's good at purring like a kitten when Erna pulls her hips towards her and slides her hand between her legs.

The nubile nineteen year old rolls over in the bed to face Erna and murmurs, "Missed you…"

"I'm sorry baby…" Erna lies. She skims her fingers over the woman's milky white thighs teasingly and flashes her an evil grin. "How should I make it up to you?"

Aoife only hums sleepily in response as Erna lifts the covers and shifts down to position herself between her legs.

Fuck rules, honestly…

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

Erna has to go on her first expedition her third month in.

She'd never seen a titan before. They are not what she expected. They move in an unsettling way that is close, but not close enough to human.

Her squad congratulates her on racking up an assist and a solo kill for herself. She is humble about it, because she doesn't want to let on how much she enjoyed it. Killing titans may be her new favorite hobby. The rush is nice. Maybe not as nice as killing a human being, but she has to take what she can get.

She could get used to expeditions, she thinks, until night falls and she finds out one key piece of information.

"What do you mean we sleep on the ground?" She asks Shadis in an outrage.

"I mean, unpack your tent, set it up, and go to sleep, Raban," he orders her, his voice full of quiet rage. Warning her that if she doesn't comply he is going to make her regret it.

She has had it with being ordered around by an idiot. This is the final straw.

"There are perfectly good trees right there!" She gestures to the forest close by, as if he could miss the giant redwood trees.

"Titans don't move at night. You'll be fine on the ground."

"This is bullshit," she says to his back as he walks away.

"What was that, Raban?"

"…I said, I don't sleep on the ground, sir."

He turns back and gets very close to her and threatens her in a dull roar. "I've had enough of your insubordination, Princess. One more outburst like that and tomorrow morning we'll move out without you. You can stay here and be bait for the titans."

She grits her teeth."...Yes, sir…"

She stares at him while he walks away. She imagines how she could kill him in his sleep and make it look like an accident.

"You're right about the tents," a smooth voice says from behind her.

She turns around to face her personal inquisitor, investigator, antagonist, who's always on her fucking heels, trying to figure her out. It feels like they're always subtly chasing each other and trying to look friendly about it. He is still unsatisfied with her weak explanation of her past and how she came to be here. She still struggles to get scraps of personal information about Nile out of him. Neither of them will ever let on about any of that, though. They're both too cunning to ever be honest about why they're drawn together.

Erwin walks closer and elaborates, "The trees would be safer, and sleeping in them would eliminate the need for tents which would be one less thing to carry, and one more thing struck from the budget."

Erna hums disinterestedly. She doesn't care for the way he looks impressed with her intelligence, because smart or not, there's nothing she can do about the situation anyway. It makes her cranky. She tells him sarcastically, "I'll let you steal that idea for when you're Commander then."

"Maybe I will."

She tosses her pack off of her shoulders and kicks it. "Is that your plan then? Be the perfect soldier? Suck up to the higher ranks? Follow all the rules until you're the one making them?"

She's been this way toward him for a week or two, more real. She let the nice girl act drop when it started to become clear that it wasn't getting her anywhere. It wasn't getting her closer into his confidence. It wasn't disarming him. May as well relieve herself from the stress and the exhaustion that comes of putting that mask on. Being more herself energizes her, to some extent. He doesn't even seem to mind anyway. If anything, he's a little less guarded when she's being real.

"You could say that's part of my goal, yes." He says it so self-seriously. This is the most he's ever let Erna in.

That piques her interest. "What are you going to do after you're Commander?"

"I want to make humanity free again."

Erna could gag. Freedom is something you wrestle out of the hands of others and hold onto with teeth and claws. It is not something to just give to people. Besides, fuck humanity.

"How free?"

Erwin steps closer to her so that he can speak more quietly, because what he's about to say is treason. "Free from a tyrannical government. Free from walls."

The look in his eyes is hungry. The spark that flickers there would look almost maniacal if it weren't so hard and calculating.

She went back and forth often since their first meeting, trying to decide if he is like her. She's never met another person incapable of empathy and she didn't know what it would look like. It looks like the look in his eyes right now. He is just as sure of his superiority over everyone as she is of hers.

She diagnoses him on the spot as a narcissistic sociopath with a god complex. That's why he always seems so altruistic. He would save humanity. He would do it only to prove that he is omniscient, infallible…god-like. He's in denial if he thinks that he is being noble and good.

Erna has no such capacity for denial. She knows exactly what she is.

He can be a golden god if he wants. She'll leave him to it. Only so long as he doesn't disrupt her way of life.

She tells him glibly as she bends down to begin setting up her tent, "When you're in charge get rid of the rule about smoking as well."

He laughs softly and promises that he will.

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

Night is cold. It gets more and more so as the earth lets go of its sun-drenched heat. The ground is damp. The smell of it makes Erna think of her cell.

She made some promises to herself when she gave up and let the Military Police win their little struggle. One of those promises was that she would never sleep on the cold, hard ground again. It makes her bones ache with the psychological pain of memory. It's the same way that stabbing pains shoot to her brain when she looks at her fingernails. Her memories haunt her with burning, pricking, throbbing pain associated with what came along with sleeping on the hard floor of her cell.

She whips her blanket off and gets up and out of her tent before a panic attack can overtake her.

Pacing quietly on the balls of her feet, weaving through a small sea of identical green tents, she tries to think of a solution to this problem. She explores her options. There are three basic paths to getting anything one wants. Stealing is one. She could look for extra bed rolls or blankets in the supply carts and fashion herself a softer mattress. Convincing is another. She could simply coax others into giving her the soft pillows, bed rolls, blankets, whatever she would need to be able to sleep. The third option is to get creative.

She's always been a creative genius when it comes to the art of getting what she wants.

She finds Zackarius' tent and pads softly over the grass until she is close enough to say very softly, "Mike?"

There's no sleepiness in his voice when he knowingly says, "Erna."

She squats down and opens the tent flap a little. He's lying on his back, hands behind his head. She asks, "How did you know it was me?"

"Could smell you moving around out there." He shifts a little, bringing his head and neck up slightly to look at her. "Couldn't sleep?"

Mike's nose is something she's learned to be careful of. She never smokes at times when she doesn't want him to find her. He can smell one of her cigarettes from a mile away.

She finds herself feeling glad that it is so dark. She hasn't practiced her vulnerable expression in a long time. She isn't confident that she could get it right. She can, however, fake the feeling with her voice easily. She takes on a soft tone, making herself sound small. "I, um…" she stammers intentionally. "I don't do well in the dark."

She can see his face just a little in the moonlight that filters in behind her. She can see that wolfish, condescending smirk. "You're afraid of the dark?"

Her lips pout. She makes it sound like she's trying to save her pride. "I'm fine when I'm not alone…I just don't like being _alone_ in the dark…"

He grunts in response, as if to say, 'What do you want me to do about that?'

She looks down shyly, lowering her eyelashes and playing nervously with the hem of her shirt. "Could I… Do you think I could sleep with you?"

He hums low in his throat, like a warning growl.

She straightens up a little. He's not going to buy the shy thing. He probably sees right through it, but it seems to have sparked his interest anyway. So he likes her being coquettish. She can do that.

Her voice is lower and edged with lust when she says, "I feel safe with you."

She waits for him to say something. She doesn't move from her kneeling position at the tent opening and she won't until he gives her a positive indication that he wants her to. Monster that she is, she's never forced herself on anyone.

In the dark she has to narrow her eyes a little to catch every single minute detail of his body language. The way he spreads his powerful legs just slightly, adjusting himself before he says with a dark, rich voice, "There's not much room," doesn't escape her notice.

"That's okay…" She crawls forward on hands and knees, slinking over him in the small space. She straddles his hips and sits up tall on top of his large frame. She splays her fingers over his chest. "I don't take up much room."

His big, rough hands find her hips and he digs his fingers into her soft flesh as he growls and grinds his hips up into hers. She smiles down at him.

As his hands slide up, briefly stopping to squeeze her ass before caressing the arch of her back and settling possessively around her waist, she wonders if he gets approached for sex often, because he seemed to know her game from the very beginning.

It would make sense. He looks like he would have a big cock, and he's certainly sexy if heavy muscles and calloused hands are your thing. She wouldn't be shocked if a quarter of the Survey Corps tried to use him for a good fuck.

"Will you be gentle with me?" She asks, coy and teasing. "I haven't been with a man in a long time."

None of that is a lie. Her interest in men is rare. She hasn't had sex with a man in about a year. Not since that quick fuck with that nobleman whom she ended up strangling to death. She picks and chooses very carefully when she will try to lie to Mike. He's too smart for most of her lies. He's quiet, but she's seen enough to tell that he's sharp, keenly observant, and difficult to fool.

He doesn't answer her, except by sliding a hand up between her shoulder blades and pressing her down onto him, capturing her mouth in a long kiss. She plays it up and forces his mouth open more with her tongue. When he parts his lips for her, she gives the lower one a sudden nip with her canine.

He grips her waist harder and pushes her just slightly up and holds her there. "I need to be gentle, but you don't?" He says teasingly as he licks over his bitten lip.

"Yes," she says as she smiles mischievously, "You're bigger than me."

She says it because she thinks he may have a size kink. She seems to be right, because the reminder makes him moan. She pushes her hands under his shirt, sliding her fingers over the hard creases of his muscles, and she adds, "And much stronger."

He hums and she ghosts her lips over his throat to feel the vibration. She has a thing for his rich, deep baritone. She prefers women's bodies, but somehow men's deep voices still get her off. She tongues at his pulse and earns another deep moan.

"I'll be very gentle with you," he promises only a little sarcastically.

She keeps flicking teasing licks over his neck, his earlobe, his collarbone while he busies himself with the buttons on the long-sleeved white shirt underneath her jacket. She has so much fun testing his reactions, noting what really makes him gasp and growl that she almost forgets something. Suddenly when he has the last button undone and his rough hands are pushing at her clothes, trying to peel the shirt and jacket away in one go, she remembers, jolting up as if she were stung.

Her reaction is disconcerting to him. Immediately he holds his hands up, he stops his breathing, and goes still, afraid that he did something wrong without realizing. "Are you okay?"

She exhales a deep breath. This time the vulnerability in her voice is real. "Sorry…" She casts her eyes down and fingers at the material of her jacket. "Let me keep this… I have some scars. I'm shy about them."

There's a twinge of sympathy at the corners of his eyelids. She's worried that she fucked up her plan. Oh well. It would have been fucked either way. He would have seen the deep, jagged scars over her back from whips, steel-tipped floggers, and the like, and he would have been too disturbed to continue. Or, now, he'll feel too much pity for her admission and be too disturbed to continue.

But, unexpectedly, the sympathy only covers his face for a split second. Then it's gone and the lust-blown feral look creeps back over his features as he slides a hand up her abdomen to hook a finger through her bra and pull her down, bringing her face close to his again. " _You_ …" he says, "have _nothing_ to be shy about."

Never underestimate the power of a healthy libido to stamp out any feelings of sympathy or pity that might hold a person back from doing something debauched.

He doesn't try to remove her shirt or jacket, but he doesn't hesitate to push her bra up and over her chest to expose her perky little breasts tipped with light pink nipples that quickly come to attention once exposed. His hands tighten around her waist and easily pull her up his body, like she weighs nothing, until she's straddling his abs instead of his hips and her chest is better positioned for him to cover one of those pink nipples with his mouth.

She decides he definitely has a size kink, because she would have thought he'd be disappointed with only an A-cup. Her breasts used to be bigger, back when she still had some body fat. It hasn't been long since the hospital and she is still in the process of recovery. Contrary to her fear, he gets more excited by the fact that he can fit one in the palm of his hand and cover most of the other with his mouth.

He closes his eyes and tongues away at her, muffled groans and grunts complementing the way she whimpers and sighs. He tweaks her other nipple between two fingers and she can feel his lips curl into an evil smirk when she yelps.

"Gentle," she scolds.

He laves his tongue over her, in apology for the rough treatment.

She arches her back in ecstasy and lets him caress and worship her. He's good with his mouth and his hands…much better than she expected. She would have thought he would be rough, unskilled, and lazy, getting by his whole life without needing to compensate for any lack of size or good looks.

Her breathing gets harder because she's excited. She loves when people actually manage to surprise her.

She turns to try to look behind her and see how hard he is, but it's too dark, and he won't let her twist around too much, stubbornly holding her in place so that he can keep lavishing his attention over her breasts. She's curious to see what he's packing in those suffocating white pants, but she could also be just as happy ignoring his cock. Either she'll get through this without even needing to touch it, or his frustration and need will build up until he's a desperate, feral, rutting mess who will be too far gone to be considerate when he's fucking into her as hard as he can. And she is equally happy with either of those options.

As long as she gets hers.

She undoes the button on the waist of her pants and unzips them just enough. Gently, she takes the wrist of the hand kneading at the curve of her breast and she guides it down. He takes the cue easily, sliding his fingers under the white fabric, palming at her and probing at the silky panties she wears because – Walls help her – she likes pretty, soft, smooth things sometimes.

He releases her nipple from his mouth with one last long, wet suck, and looks up at her with dark eyes, blown black. His fingers apply a little more pressure to her lips and curl upward, teasing her. "So wet…"

It feels a little like he might be mocking her. She wants to ask what he expected. She's human. She's not made of stone.

And it shows when his thumb rubs over the fabric covering her clit and she whimpers, pants, and can't stop a high-pitched keening sob from making its way past her parted lips.

The powerfully defined muscles in his arm roll and flex as he adjusts. He slides his hand under the silk that's covering her and he pushes the heel of his palm against her clit, making her buck her hips to keep up the friction she wants, ensuring that she needs to act like a wanton little slut if she really wants to get off. She can't stop her hips from rolling frantically, desperately rutting against his hand, trying so hard to hurry towards that release. She can feel his condescending, crooked, knowing smirk against her neck. In stark contrast to her impatient movements, he slides one finger past her lips, filling her up with it, and sliding it in and out of her slowly and languidly.

"You're so tight," he says, almost like it's a bad thing.

She's past the point of being able to concentrate on his voice. She's deep inside her head, picturing the awful, fucked up things that she needs to imagine in order to push herself over the edge of her climax. She thinks of innocent people being tortured and fucked, used and treated like objects, she finally comes when she imagines their faces going listless with shock, finally accepting what's happening to them. She shudders and convulses around Mike's probing finger, gasping for air and then sighing at the intensity of it, melting bonelessly against him.

He hums and supports her weight easily with one hand around her waist. His lips kiss her neck softly over and over and he murmurs things as she comes down off of her high, chiefly among those things being, "That was beautiful."

If only he knew what was in her head.

"Do you want to keep going?"

She thinks he must be a saint if he can still restrain himself enough to ask that. She smirks evilly and tilts her chin up to look at him. She teases, "What if I don't?"

He smirks back at her, his eyes twinkling with mischief. "Then I think I've a right to kick you out so that I can finish myself off in peace."

A slight laugh gets exhaled out her nose. "Is that right, Zackarius? Are you blackmailing me?"

"I might if I thought I needed to."

She wiggles further down him, squirming over his lap and pressing at the bulge in his pants. "And what makes you so confident that you don't? I already got mine."

He doesn't say anything. His answer is in the cocky smile he flashes her.

She gets busy adjusting herself. He spreads his legs for her and she gets on her knees between his thighs. She likes his thigh muscles a lot. She shows her appreciation for them by pressing her palms over them, splaying her fingers, massaging them in upward circles. She keeps watching his eyes, only feeling more and more encouraged by how desperate he begins to look with his panting lips and dark pupils.

He doesn't say a word, but with his whole body he's fucking _begging_ her to touch his cock.

She forgot how much she liked being with men sometimes. It makes her feel so powerful. She loves the look they get when they become absolutely undone, all of that masculine strength and bravado turned to a whimpering, needy mess.

Determined to get Zackarius to that point, she lowers her mouth and ghosts her lips over the growing bulge at the crotch of his pants.

He grunts, his abdomen rising and falling with deep, labored breaths. Not one to be undone so easily, he warns her sternly, "Don't tease."

Erna makes a little indignant huff and mutters to herself, "No fun at all…" but she complies with his demand and makes quick work of the button and zipper at the front of his pants before hooking her fingers into the waist. He lifts his hips for her and she tugs, both the pants and his briefs, down his thighs and off. Then she registers with a little shock the extent of her new predicament. Her eyes go wide and she clucks her tongue. "Tch…Are you fucking kidding me?"

He raises his eyebrows at her. "Something wrong?"

"Something wrong?" she mimics him mockingly. She points at his half-hard cock and says, "You didn't really think that was going to fit inside me did you?" She doesn't wait for him to answer; she doesn't want to know. "I mean…I expected…I don't know what I expected…but this is not okay. You are not fucking me with that."

He smirks at her and laughs low, like he thinks she's kidding or trying to flatter him.

"Seriously," she says, "Look at how big I am and look at how big you are. You're not even completely hard and that thing is as big as my forearm."

"We can work with it," he says, bringing his hands behind his head and relaxing, like he's prepared to let her take all of the time she needs.

The smug bastard. "Don't even tell me that this has worked for anyone."

"You're the first to complain about it," he tells her with a very self-satisfied smile. "It's worked for other women your size with a little patience…and a little persistence… "

She raises an eyebrow at him and smirks. "So you like fucking little girls."

That does it. His eyelids lower and a dangerous growl rumbles in his chest. Before he decides to get forceful and show her just how right she is, she wraps both of her hands around the base of his big cock, testing the weight of it. She angles it this way and that, eyeing it as if it's a puzzle to be solved. Her experimental stroking sates him for now and he relaxes again, content to let her play.

Her thumb rubs lazy, gentle circles over the skin at the underside of his shaft and slowly, she gets him to his full size, heavy and hard and way too big for her, she thinks. Her lips close around the tip of him gently in an imitation of a chaste kiss and that changes his breathing, making him hitch and stutter and moan differently. She looks up at him, her lips still only a hair's breadth away from touching and sucking and licking, and she observes with a sinful smile, "You like when I play innocent."

He can't answer her with speech. He's too far gone. The look in his eyes is enough answer anyway.

She thinks she's proven enough already how not innocent she is, but this newfound kink gives her ideas for another time. Originally, she hadn't planned on more than one time for this, but Zackarius is more fun than she expected.

His cock twitches when she fists him more firmly with both hands. One hand would be easier, but she likes using both as a subtle reminder of how big he is. She can wrap both around him one on top of the other and still not completely cover his length. That leaves the rest for her mouth. She sucks and licks languidly, not in any kind of rush. She wants to test the extent of his patience. Her tongue teases along the slit, probing softly before curling around, flicking at the ridge under the head.

The way her mouth needs to stretch when she tries to take more of him in makes her drool, slicking him up so that sliding her lips up and down becomes easier with every half inch gained. Her cheeks hollow as she sucks at him and her eyes turn upward for a reaction.

He's gone. His dark eyes are locked on her and his lips are parted as if he forgot how to breathe. His chest rises and falls in labored breaths and when she looks up at him, her eyes wide and framed by long, dark eyelashes, his throat gets strangled by the most broken moan she's ever heard.

She sucks upward and releases his cock with a wet pop, just so that she can tell him, "You're lucky I have a thing for being choked."

And she gets to work, her goal being to make him come as hard as is humanly possible. She runs her hands over his head, swirling its coating of saliva and precum down to wet the rest of his shaft before taking him back in her mouth. She's done teasing him with sucks and licks; now she only focuses on safely fitting his huge cock down her throat. She keeps herself relaxed, even as her airways get blocked off. When she hits the back of her throat and can't go further, he moans, but it's not good enough for her. She squirms and shifts, trying to find an angle where she can fit more, but she's not successful before her eyelashes start to flutter and the edges of her vision go grey, telling her that she has to come up for air. She pulls up suddenly, gasping hard, hyperventilating, and even through the haze of lust he manages to flash her a smug look and praise her.

"Good girl."

Something about that fills her skin with fire and makes her clit throb. She whines pitifully.

"You want more than that?"

She pouts and nods a little shyly, like a good girl. She wants to feel him deep in her throat and doesn't want the psychological safety of being able to come up for air so easily. She wants it to really choke her. She wants the knowledge of the danger that she might not get any oxygen at all unless she fights for it or he decides to give it to her.

He sits up suddenly and his hands are around her waist again, pulling her up, turning her around, and then grabbing at her thighs, pulling them apart. He handles her like a ball-jointed doll until she's straddling his broad chest, facing away from him. His hand slides up her back and pushes her down until her face meets the tip of his swollen cock again.

"Like that," he says.

He's right. It's easier. She can suck him down deep and the way her throat is stretched out straight in this position she can wriggle down and force more of it past her choking point. Her eyelids lower lazily as she deprives her body of air and when she moans the vibration makes his hips buck and stutter.

When she can't take more without passing out, she slides back up, until it's only the tip in her lips again. She sucks greedily at it while she fills her lungs with air.

If they were anywhere near a similar height, Mike would be able to lick her while she enjoys her exercise in masochism, but to get her hips close enough to his mouth he would have to pull her off of his cock. And he's certainly not doing that. He compromises and instead peels her pants down her thighs and strokes her silky lips with his fingers while she bears down on him again, pushing until his cock is enclosed tightly in her wet throat. He licks his fingers to taste her, and then teases her with them again, smirking at how she rocks back like a needy little whore, moaning and whining around his cock. He only pushes one finger into her up to the first knuckle, not deep enough to really satisfy how badly she wants it. He pumps in and out agonizingly slowly, her pussy clamping down on him and pulsing as he only pushes in a centimeter further each time.

"So tight," he murmurs. He thinks he'll content himself with taking her throat. The wet little cunt he's playing with feels like a vise even around his finger. He wouldn't be able to move if he did manage to fit.

He brings his finger back to his mouth and sucks at it, savoring the taste of her on his tongue. It's clear, clean, almost flavorless, but his nose catches notes that others wouldn't. Her taste has a hint of an acidic quality that's unique.

She whines at him, her throat tightening and vibrating around his cock, wordlessly begging him to keep fucking her with his finger. With a condescending smile and lust-blown blackened eyes, he obliges her, this time rolling the pad of his thumb over her clit as an extra reward for taking him so nicely.

She goes up for air again, sucking at his head, tonguing his slit, getting him wet with precum before forcing it back into her throat.

Mike feels the pressure building. He imagines pumping her full of burning heat. His thick cock twitches in her, and he can only think about how tight and warm she is as she presses back to sink deeper onto his finger.

He pumps his finger in and out of her as fast and as hard as he'd like to be fucking into her with his cock, but it doesn't make her speed up her attentions with her mouth. He's glad that she's having fun asphyxiating herself, but he's losing patience. So he bucks his hips experimentally, pushing further. When she moans instead of tensing up or choking, he tries asking, between grunts and desperate breaths, "Do you want me to…fuck that tight…little…throat?"

He can't help snapping his hips up and actually fucking into her even as he asks for permission. He's too far gone to be able to hold himself back from wrecking her no matter how she felt about it. The way she whimpers, moans, and whines, so pitiful and desperate, it's hard to tell if her noises mean she wants him to keep going or wants him to stop. But the way her hand reaches down carefully and massages his balls as he chokes her more and more tells him that she's alright if he keeps going.

He goes ahead and keeps pushing in and withdrawing a little less every time. She's only able to moan when he pulls out enough for her vocal chords to have some room to vibrate. When he pushes back in the only sound is the wet, lewd sound of her gagging around his length.

It registers in his foggy brain when she starts to struggle. Somewhere in the back of his head he knows that she needs air, but that fact combined with the consideration that he doesn't really want to hurt her do not combine to override every instinct telling him to keep going and pump his release deep inside her. So when her hands dart to his thighs, digging their nails into the muscles, it does nothing to slow him down, doesn't even make him consider pulling out. Instead, he curls both arms over her back, pushing her down and holding her still for him.

Her struggle only seems to spur him on, exciting him further. Erna gets lost somewhere between wanting to breathe and survive and wanting to be used and hurt. Her eyelashes flutter, her head lolls, she starts to feel boneless like a rag doll.

His arms crush her to him as he tips over the edge, his thick cock pulsing inside her and filling her with heat, deep enough down her throat that she can't do anything but swallow. It comes in thick spurts seemingly forever and he makes her take it all before he finally pulls out and allows her to gasp and cough and curl in on herself, cursing when she has enough breath to.

As Mike's head clears, his conscience comes to the forefront and makes him feel quite guilty. His hands smooth over her back comfortingly even through body wracking coughing spasms. She pushes herself up, he helps steady her when she sways a little with dizziness, she turns around and he asks sheepishly if she's okay.

Her breathing is even again, but her voice is so raw when she clucks her tongue at him. "Tch. Of course I'm okay. I told you I have a thing for being choked." She rolls off of him and to the side, shimmying out of her pants, she takes her panties off and uses them as a rag to clean herself of all the wetness he caused her, simply saying under her breath, "Gross," and tossing them to the side.

Mike doesn't do anything to cover himself or clean up. He's far too fucked out and sleepy for it. Erna pulls her pants back up her legs and buttons them closed so that she'll be able to get up and go easily before morning.

She crawls back on top of him, resting her head on his deep broad chest and nuzzling into him, curling up on him like a cat. He cranes his neck a little to sniff her hair before drifting into a deep sleep.

Erna kneads her fingers against the big muscles and stretches out a little, getting herself comfortable on top of him.

It might have been a bit of work, but she thinks it was definitely worth it. Mike is a perfectly acceptable bed.

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The first night of the expedition, she did it for strictly utilitarian purposes. The second night, it's still so that she'll have a warm, soft thing to sleep on, but maybe also it's for some fun. His size, his masculinity, and his particular streak of kink have inspired her.

This time, when Erna sneaks to his tent in the dark, she doesn't ask permission to come in. He's sitting up and ready for her, even though she never told him she'd be coming back.

She waits until she's on her knees in front of him. She's holding his heavy, thick cock in both hands, teasing it by softly brushing her lips over the head while he makes deep growling sounds in his chest. She looks up at him with big, innocent eyes and asks without a hint of hesitation or shame, "Can I call you Daddy?"

It's honestly the most innocent and non-violent of any of her fantasies, but still Mike's pupils suddenly blow wide, making his eyes look so much darker. His mouth twists into an arrogant smile as he breathes a slight laugh out his nose.

He nods. Then, his hand cards into her black curly locks, keeping her head tilted up to hold eye contact with him as he brushes her hands away. He takes himself in hand and lightly smears the head of his cock over her lips, wetting them with precum, as he gets impossibly harder. His voice rumbles, "Such a good girl."

Erna had some intuition that he'd already done this before, or at least had thought about it. He plays the part perfectly. She wasn't aware that being made to feel small and helpless was a kink she had until the night before, but it made sense to her now. Getting off to the memory of being taken advantage of, getting turned on to the thought of her innocence being destroyed…it was how she learned to cope. What happened to her was ugly and damaging, but she embraced it. She learned to make it her own and enjoy it.

And, fuck, did she enjoy it a lot.

She puts on her practiced shy, innocent face and she moans softly, "Mm… Can I lick you, Daddy?" as she eyes his thick, leaking cock that he's holding just out of her reach.

He twitches on that last word. A shudder runs through his body as he resists the urge to start roughly fucking her face right there until tears stream down her cheeks.

He watches her eyes glimmer as she hears a slight groan get caught in his throat. He has to tilt his head back a little, look upward, and swallow hard. He takes a couple of deep breaths. When he feels like he has the ravaging animal inside him under control, he looks down at her with dark eyes again and he taps his cock against her innocent, pouting lips. "Are you hungry, little girl? You want a taste of your Daddy's cock?"

Erna nods eagerly, tapping into the childish side of her that is at most times only a memory. The part of her that is still intact somewhere, separated from all of the breaking that happened later, still innocent. She opens her mouth for him, never taking her wide eyes off his half-lidded, lust-darkened ones.

He pushes past her perfect, glossy lips and angles his cock to push down on her soft, pink tongue, watching it flatten beautifully under the weight of him. Her lips close around him and she sucks on him like a lollipop, making sweet little cooing noises.

"Oh, that's a good girl," he growls. Her eyes close as she continues to hollow her cheeks out and suck on him like he's the best thing she's ever tasted, like she was starving for him. When it gets to be too much and he feels pressure building up in his abdomen, sinking down to his balls, he pulls out of her warm mouth with a wet pop.

She makes her eyes bigger and pouts at him with reddened, wet lips. She whines at him pitifully, "Daddy…"

There's a hint of an evil smile that plays across his lips before he tells her with an authoritative but nurturing quality, "You have to ask nicely for it."

"Daddy, please." She draws out the last word in a long, desperate whine. He watches her squirm at how hard the throbbing between her legs is getting. She rubs her thighs together and looks conflicted about how wet she is. Her frustration makes her voice high and tight. "Please just fuck my mouth with your big cock, Daddy?"

Mike raises his eyebrow at her and fills his deep voice with condescension, patronizing her. "Oh?" he says. "And when did Daddy's little girl get such a filthy mouth?"

"Unhh," she whines. Her usual self is stripped away in this moment. In her headspace she really is a helpless little girl, with the emotional maturity of one, which means that she gets frustrated easily and wants what she wants right away. Impulsively, she reaches for his cock, but he holds it and tilts it back away from her in one hand, easily trapping her wrist with the other.

He squeezes her wrist tight and taunts her. "You're being a very naughty girl."

"But I want it," she whines. To her mind, that's all the justification she needs.

She pouts and looks heartbroken when he releases her wrist and uses his hands to tuck himself back into his pants, buttoning them closed again while giving her a very stern look. She pays his displeasure with her behavior little mind as her eyes turn to the way the tight white pants outline the giant cock they're confining.

Promptly, with no warning, he gets down on the ground with her and pushes her back, manhandling her like a toy. Her legs get pulled out from under her, and grabbing her ankles tightly, he lifts her hips up off the ground to hook her legs over his shoulders as he draws himself up from his knees. With her legs draped over his broad shoulders, she can only look up at him helplessly as she hangs against him, only her shoulders, head, and neck touching the ground. As she squirms and makes little noises of protest, he runs his thumb over her pants, her thighs now open like an offering to him, and he presses down right over where the fabric covers her core. With a wicked, deep baritone that rumbles dangerously through his chest, he says, "Let's see how naughty you are."

He roughly pulls at her clothes, peeling them away only with enough patience to uncover what he wants, leaving her looking wrecked, shirt unbuttoned to her navel, bra pushed up, pants only pulled down to mid-thigh. It makes her look more disheveled than she would if he took the time to strip away everything and it lights a fire in him.

Her moan comes out broken, torn from being at odds with the shame she knows she should feel. She cries out softly, "Daddy, no."

"What's this?" he stares at her in mocking wonder. "You're not wearing any panties?" He runs a finger over her exposed cunt on display for him, making her flinch and shudder. "When did you get so wet?"

Her teeth worry her lower lip. She can't keep her hips from bucking up to meet his fingers, begging to be filled up by them. She looks away and pouts. "Just wanted your cock…"

"Mmm," he rumbles. "But only good little girls get what they want."

"I _am_ good!" she insists.

He raises his eyebrow at her skeptically. "Good girls don't talk back…" he looks again to her puffy, pink lips and he teases them open with a rough, calloused finger, then holding it up to show her, he says, "And they don't get this wet."

Her eyes get big, her blown black pupils giving them a deep liquid look. She turns them away and avoids looking at him.

He won't have that. His hand smacks the side of the rounded muscle of her ass and a sharp crack resounds through the confines of the small tent. She yelps in surprise and he locks his eyes on hers as he warns, "Look at me when I'm talking to you, _girl_."

She nods with a newfound respect, eyes widened as if she's surprised that he spanked her.

"This…" he says as he probes at her wet little entrance with his finger again, pushing past her lips and pumping slowly, "…is very naughty."

Confusion and ecstasy are in conflict over her face. Her leg muscles tighten and flex, pulling up to try and take his finger deeper even while he scolds her for it.

He teases a second finger slowly inside her, pumping languidly. She hisses and winces a little at the addition, but then he reprimands her for it. "Daddy can't have his precious little girl behaving like a wanton slut."

And she goes boneless, sagging against him, her leg muscles giving out so that he has to grip his free hand against a thigh to hold her up. She whines and he can feel her just beginning to tighten up around his fingers, barely starting to convulse. He pulls them out quickly. He isn't letting her come yet.

Her hips stutter unevenly as her orgasm gets interrupted. She frowns at the unfairness of it and lets him know her feelings on what he just did by delivering a sharp kick to his shoulder blade, which doesn't hurt him, but makes him smile smugly before casually bringing the two wet fingers to his mouth and inhaling deeply as he tastes them.

He takes his time enjoying her unique flavor, thinking that he'd like to plunge his tongue deeply inside her to get more. Only she certainly doesn't deserve that after her little tantrum.

When he's done, he looks down at her face, her nose scrunched up cutely as she glares at him. He frowns back at her. He thinks his little girl needs some discipline.

"Did you think you deserved to come, you spoiled little slut?"

The severity in his voice makes her falter and change her expression as she realizes her error and feels a little intimidated. She looks up at him apologetically and whines, "I'll be good, Daddy…"

"Oh we're going to make sure of that," he warns. "Daddy's going to have to punish you."

She tenses up as he reaches up and unhooks her legs from his shoulders, swiftly depositing her back down on the ground. He orders her to turn over onto her hands and knees so that she can take her spanking.

She pouts and brings her knees up to her chest instead, circling her arms around them and hugging her legs. She whines like a spoiled, precocious little brat, "But, _Daddy_ …"

"It's going to be worse if you keep sassing me, girl," he threatens.

"But I'll be _good_."

"I don't doubt that," he says as he easily grabs her delicate small frame and turns her over, swiftly delivering a smack to her round little ass before she can struggle and try to squirm away. "There, now," he says, caressing over the red mark he just made. "Be good and take your punishment."

Her breath hitches in her throat, cutting off her pained gasp to moan, "Yes, Daddy…"

He delivers three more quick, sharp smacks and watches her flesh shake after each forceful blow. His cock twitches in his pants each time one of her cries of pain morphs into a needy moan. He would love to spank her more…and much harder…if they were somewhere more private with less chance of getting caught at any moment. For now this has to be enough.

His hands smooth over her burning skin. Her back arches and she presses back against his touch. He digs his thumbs in, denting her skin, leaving white thumbprints behind. He inhales sharply with a hiss as his cock throbs harder, demanding not to be ignored any longer. Giving one last squeeze, he slides his hand up toward her shoulder blades and pushes her down until her face meets the ground so that her lovely ass and thighs are better presented for him. With the other hand he hurriedly unzips his pants again, releasing his straining cock, taking himself in his fist and giving a few well-needed strokes to soothe the monster.

When she hears his zipper, she tenses and tries to turn around to see what he's doing, but he holds her down.

"Close your legs, naughty little girl."

She whines with trepidation as she does as he told her. Mike strokes his cock, swirling the now steadily leaking precum over the head, down his shaft, and pumping up again, tightening his grip toward the top of his stroke as he stares at her pretty, pink little pussy, swollen and dripping for him like a ripe peach. He presses and prods the tip of his cock experimentally against her lips as he keeps stroking himself.

She gets tense as a bowstring and whines pitifully, "Daddy, don't," feeling helpless and small as he keeps her pressed flat against the ground, his body curling over hers.

He shushes her and slides his cock up and down her wet slit, coating the head in more lubrication. "Don't worry. Daddy's not going to hurt you."

He pushes slowly, to little effect. He can barely get the tip of his head past her opening. Something in her clamps down and makes her impossibly tight. He grunts as he meets the resistance. He tries withdrawing and pushing again, but it doesn't loosen her up. He can't fuck any further into her without probably causing her a great deal of pain.

He considers trying anyway. He keeps pulling out to the tip and pushing forward to the point of resistance until she whines at him again, her vocal chords raw, "Daddy, _please_ don't."

That time it gets through to him and he feels briefly ashamed of himself. He murmurs at her, "Shh… Daddy was only playing with you," as he pulls out completely, letting her up and giving her room to turn around and face him.

She gives him a very indignant look. "You're too _big_ , Daddy."

His lips curve briefly into a smile before returning to their straight line. "I know. Come here."

She snuggles onto his lap, into his outstretched arms and she scolds him for being a bad daddy and trying to fuck her. He makes it up to her, finding her clit and rolling it under his thumb, making her roll her hips and sigh.

"Do you want to taste yourself on Daddy's cock?"

She hums before crawling off of his lap to close her mouth around his cock greedily. He pulls her hips to him so that he can still reach her wet cunt and make her moan. He places a hand on the back of her bobbing head. He wants to bury himself in her throat.

She cants her hips back and he offers her a finger to fuck herself on as he pushes harder and more insistently into the wet heat of her mouth.

"That's a good girl…" He strokes her hair as she relaxes and swallows him down as deep into her throat as she can. "Take it all…take all of Daddy's cock…so good…going to fill your tight little throat…"

He lets her come this time when he feels her tighten around his finger and her walls pulse around him. He inhales deeply and bucks his hips until he feels her throat tighten in choking spasms. The hand in her hair holds her down while she struggles for air and he tells her, "So close, baby girl. Take all of Daddy's cum."

He grunts and pants as the pressure in him explodes and his release empties into her. As soon as he takes his hand from the back of her head, she pops up, swallowing, coughing, and gagging.

With the lust ebbing away and clarity filtering in, he suddenly feels guilty for the second night in a row. He wonders if he was too rough.

Erna wipes her mouth, wipes the tears away from the corners of her eyes. He opens his mouth, knowing that he should ask her if she's okay, maybe even apologize. She doesn't let him say anything. She butts her forehead against the large muscles of his chest and gently pushes him to lie down on his back. When he's settled she curls up on top of him, burying her face into the crook of his neck.

She murmurs "Thank you," before falling into a death-like sleep.

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

It's only after the expedition, when all the living that remain are safely back inside the walls, that Erna finally finds a little more common ground with Smith. They are the only two soldiers who do not mourn the dead.

They both carry on as usual, unaffected. Erwin is only stoically somber when others lament. Erna sneers at such sentimentality.

Only a day after the completion of the expedition, Erwin finds her, smoking around the stable again. He asks if she's all right and she snorts derisively.

"How many did you lose?" She says 'you,' and not 'we,' because she doesn't consider herself part of the Survey Corps. She never will.

"Fifty-three," he replies.

He sounds nonchalant about it to her. She taps the ash off the end of her cigarette and watches it float to the ground. She says, "You don't seem to mind."

He nods solemnly. "Despite the loss, the mission was successful."

"Well," she takes another drag from her cigarette. "That's all that matters then, isn't it?"

"Overall, it's good for humanity."

"No doubt," she says carelessly, looking away from his icy blue eyes toward the horizon.

She would admire his single-minded determination and stoicism if it weren't for such a stupid cause. Still, he's very selfish, very willing to sacrifice others for his ambition. She can identify with that.

Shadis promotes him to an officer position. Apparently Smith has some new strategy for cutting down on casualties during expeditions – a new formation or something. Erna couldn't care less. She will probably be on her way before it's implemented.

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

Smith catches her three days later, around dusk again. He's caught onto when and where she likes to enjoy her daily cigarette. He can find her easily. It also helps that having fifty-three fewer people makes it a little easier to find anyone around headquarters.

He skips any pleasantries this time. "Mike thinks you've been avoiding him."

She hums as she thinks about that. "I wouldn't say 'avoiding.' I treat him with the same level of interest as I did before."

"Before what?" He stares at her with that grim expression, his voice full of hidden meaning.

"Well," she sighs coyly, "Before we were on that expedition and I was expected to sleep on the cold, hard ground." She ashes her cigarette carelessly. "Zacharius makes a good mattress."

"He's worried that he did something wrong."

"Did he say that?" Erna asks, her voice icy cold.

Erwin stares at her silently. Of course he didn't say that. Erwin inferred it.

"Maybe he did do something wrong," Erna says with complete indifference. "I'm good at getting people to do wrong things. Why tell me this anyway?"

"I don't want you to hurt him."

"Oh, I doubt I could do that," she hums nonchalantly. "You don't think it's possible that he has feelings for me, do you?"

"Why not?"

"Because," she says, "I'd think that he would know a sociopath when he sees one by now."

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

That night, on Mike's way back from the men's showers, he smells something familiar. He almost doesn't want to seek it out, but his better instincts fail him and he gives into his curiosity. Following his nose brings him down the hall to the large kitchen, normally closed down and out of use at this time of night. Normally it would be quiet.

A girlish moan that he recognizes cuts softly through the air. He knows that he shouldn't, that it's foolish, but he can't help the way his heart twinges with the dull ache of jealousy.

Unconsciously, he makes his footsteps softer as he gets closer to the noise and the scent. He can just make out her figure through the slightly open door. She's sitting on one of the counters, silhouetted by a lonely candle set next to her. The orange glow from the flame highlights the curve of her small waist and flickers as she leans back onto her palms, arching her back and stretching in lazy ecstasy under the ministrations of the taller, fully clothed figure kneeling on the floor, head firmly between her open thighs.

She's completely unclothed, like she would never let him have her. She looks different. Not just because of the nudity, but there's something else. She's relaxed and truly enjoying herself in a way that she didn't with him. When they were together it was like she was only concerned with power and the struggle to give it up or take it away, to draw out the monster or keep it contained. There's none of that in her posture now. She only looks languid, like some kind of shameless nymph.

She leans forward, bringing her hands off of the counter. Her fingers reach for the head of short, blonde hair attached to the person between her legs and she drags her nails over their scalp softly. Mike can't quite hear. His ears aren't as sharp as his nose. But she says something soft and sweet and he can barely make out the other's chin tilting up to give some mischievous response. Erna giggles. Her laugh is soft and musical. It's a dulcet, silvery tone that he's never heard come from her before.

Despite his jealousy, blood rushes to his groin. He watches the man between her legs get back to work, licking and sucking and biting softly at the junction of her thighs. Her chest rises and falls faster as she revels in the sensation of what he's doing to her.

Mike palms his now growing erection and stifles a groan in his throat. He shifts his weight slightly and sidesteps to get a view from a better angle, for what purpose he isn't sure. He hazards a soft push at the door, just to nudge it open another inch as he watches carefully to make sure neither of them notices.

He thinks he recognizes the other person, as they slide a hand over Erna's ankle, cupping her calf muscle and then caressing her thigh. Erna writhes under their touch. The hand disappears between her legs and soon thereafter she gasps and her lips curl to form a wicked smile.

She arches her back and rolls her hips, making sighs and little moans to let her partner know how much she's enjoying everything they're doing.

Then her head lolls slightly to the side as she rolls her neck and stretches out her shoulders. She stops and looks straight at the door, directly at him. She knew he was there the whole time. Mike feels frozen in place, turned to stone by her eyes. She smirks at him and then she winks. The cheeky little coquette.

She focuses back on her lover and cards her hand through their blonde hair, tugging just slightly, not violently. She whispers something and the person between her legs stands up, placing their hands on the counter on either side of her, caging her and leaning in for a kiss.

They trap Erna's lower lip and suck on it before pushing their tongue past her lips possessive and confidently. They smirk at how willingly she yields to them and they slide one hand over her thigh, squeezing before reaching between her legs again.

Mike was right. He does recognize the person so skillfully making Erna writhe and moan. He was only wrong in his assumption that it was another man.

Nanaba places a hand on the small of Erna's beautifully arched back and nuzzles at her neck, whispering something to her before nipping at her earlobe.

Mike stays rooted in place, unable or unwilling to look away. Erna yelps as if she's surprised when Nanaba's fingers enter her and she butts her forehead against the blonde's shoulder, arms encircling her and clutching and clawing at the back of her shirt.

Mike wonders how much of the passion and ecstasy is real and how much of it is a show for him.

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

When her six months are up, Erna gets official correspondence from the Military Police. She survived this hell and her escort will pick her up in a week and take her to the southern district training camp. The current class of trainees will graduate a week after that and the next class will be all hers.

Most importantly, she'll be able to smoke whenever she damn well pleases and she'll finally have her own room again. She hasn't had any real privacy since her arrest, unless her hours in the dark silence of that cell count as privacy.

And, she supposes, it's okay to tell people why she'll be leaving. And it's okay to tell them exactly what she thinks of the Survey Corps and the altruistic fools that make up its ranks.

Though there's nobody she particularly cares to tell…Except for one man…

She goes straight to the dining hall, finds the table that Erwin and Mike are eating at, and she flattens her letter from Sina to the dark wooden tabletop right next to Erwin.

No shock registers across his face. He takes literally any and all news with the same grim attitude. He scans the letter that she's pinned beneath her fingers and simply says, "So you're going to be an Instructor."

"The takeaway is that I'm getting the fuck out of here," she corrects him. "So let's finally be real with each other." She sits down next to him. "I'll tell you everything you want to know, every answer to everything about me that's been needling away at you."

That piques his interest. So he was still curious.

"But," she says, holding up a finger, "only if you finally tell me everything about Nile Dok."

His big eyebrows crease. "Why?"

"You'll find that out if you simply tell me where I am most likely to find him," she says through gritted teeth.

In the end, Smith decides that satiating his curiosity isn't worth it. There's too much fire in her eyes. She wants information on Nile too badly.

She half-expected that. She doesn't mind so much. She has a lot of time to learn what she wants.

"Well, boys, it's been fucking lovely." She gets up, folding her letter into thirds and putting it into the pocket of her jacket. Smith she gives an exaggerated slap on the back. Zackarius gets his hair ruffled as she kisses him softly on the cheek.

Smith says, "Goodbye, Erna."

One more thing. She stiffens on her way out and turns on her heel. "Never use my first name. It's Instructor Raban now."


	6. Names

(Year 839)

"Do you mind telling me just what in the fuck this is, Smith?"

Erwin cringes imperceptibly as the slight, raven-haired Instructor storms angrily across the training field to the spot where one of her underlings had told him to wait with his new charges. The three fresh recruits behind him are unimpressed by her obvious anger. They don't know any better. Not yet. Erwin doesn't think it will take them long to learn to fear their new instructor.

Erwin steels himself, squares his shoulders, and says with as much authority as he actually possesses, "It's Squad Leader Smith, now."

"I'd heard," Erna answers with all of the disdain that comes from having a history with someone.

Technically, he outranks her. If he didn't know any better, he would do something stupid like demand that she refer to him by his proper rank and do as he orders, but he's worked with Erna before. He knows how unsuccessful he'd be with that approach.

"So what the fuck is all…this?" She points at the three standing behind him and looks somewhat disgusted and annoyed as if he just tracked dog shit into her house.

Erwin clears his throat. "These are new recruits that need training."

Erna adjusts her weight and cocks a hip as she hums and brings a finger to her lip as if trying to remember something. "Nope, sorry, that's not how it works. I know you're new at this Squad Leader thing, but the way we do this is: I train them, and then you come take them from me. I won't have you fucking up our neat little system."

One of the group behind him snickers. Erwin leans down, nearer to the short Instructor's level, and says quietly, "Can we speak privately?"

"Absolutely not."

Erwin sighs heavily. His best bet is to be as candid as possible. He gestures behind him and says, "These three are criminals we recruited from the Underground. They're to join the Survey Corps in exchange for a clean criminal record. I need their training expedited."

Erna smirks and raises an eyebrow. "Familiar story…" She keeps him waiting in suspense while she gives the group a careful look. The blonde one shifts his weight uncomfortably, the redheaded girl smiles, and the short one scowls and refuses to acknowledge her. "I'm intrigued," she tells Erwin. "Keep going."

"They already know how to use the maneuver gear. They stole three sets of it and have been using it in The Underground."

"We didn't st—" cries the little redhead before the blonde man next to her claps a hand over her mouth to quiet her before she can say anything to get herself in trouble.

"Hmm…" Erna has to admit that she finds them interesting. It's not easy to use maneuver gear at all, much less in close quarters. "The average graduation time is two to three years. How expedited were you thinking?"

Erwin swallows. He says carefully, "Three months…"

Erna's nostrils flare. "Three months?" she repeats in disbelief, angered at the audacity of the request. She looks past Erwin to look over the Underground brats he brought with him again. "It's going to take at least one month just to potty train them."

"Please?" Erwin asks. He'll beg if he has to. "You're the only one who could do it, if it can be done at all."

There is a long silence. Erwin knows that this is what she does. She stays quiet to see if you'll do something to put your foot in your own mouth. He waits silently. He won't fall into her trap.

Finally, she says, "And what if I refuse?"

Erwin is wary. She probably wants him to threaten her with consequences so that she can chew him out. Instead he shrugs and says, "I guess I'd have to take them to the Western District training grounds and ask Instructor Hess to—"

He doesn't get to finish.

"That bitch doesn't know his own hairy asshole from a fucking hole in the ground," Erna growls. Then she stops herself, realizing that Smith is successfully using her pride against her. "And your creepy reverse psychology isn't going to work."

The little redhead snickers. Finally, the surly one speaks up and says in a quiet monotone deadpan, "We don't need training."

"See, Erwin? They don't need training. You're wasting your time." Erna says sarcastically and, without so much as a good bye, she starts walking away.

Erwin frowns. He should have brought Mike with him, if for nothing else than to keep Levi quiet while he negotiated with Erna.

"Erna."

She stops in her tracks. She doesn't turn around for a second. Levi turns his attention away from the ground as this has just become interesting. Smith had told them only two things about joining the Southern District Training Corps: Do everything your instructor says and never use her first name. He'd made the second instruction sound much more important than the first and impressed it upon them heavily as if it was the difference between life and death. Levi wonders why the Survey Corps Squad Leader doesn't follow his own rule.

When she turns around, there's a scowl on her face that could make a grown man cry in fear. Erwin stands his ground as she comes back, eating up the ground in long strides.

But when she stops to stand in front of him, her face changes. Instantly the angry scowl is replaced by a mad and unsettling sweetness, which if anything, is scarier than when she actually looked angry.

She does not get upset at Erwin for using her name like Levi expects. She gives Erwin a look up and down and asks, "What's in it for me?"

"Anything you want," Erwin says readily like he expected extortion from the beginning.

Erna hums as if she's thinking and dramatically brings a finger to her lips, "Well, maybe some fancy soap would be nice, oh and a lace duvet for my bed, and a new dress, and—" Mid-sentence she cuts the sarcasm and crosses her arms over her chest. "How long have you fucking known me, Smith?"

Erwin turns around and takes Farlan's bag out of his hands, surprising and confusing the Underground thief. He'd had bags packed for the three this morning, mostly with just necessities since he knew they didn't have any possessions of their own. But he'd put something extra in Farlan's bag. He rifles through it and removes a glass bottle. He offers it to Erna who snatches it away.

"Bourbon," he says. "From the best—"

"Yeah whatever," Erna cuts him off. "What else?"

When Erwin doesn't move right away, Erna rolls her eyes. "You're a strategic and tactical nerd, Smith. I know you don't go anywhere without a backup plan. You brought something better to offer in case I didn't take this."

The large, imposing blond man sighs heavily and rolls his shoulders before he opens the bag again. He takes out a sealed box made of thin wood and hands it to her.

Erna breaks the seal and opens it hastily. She smiles slightly as soon as she gets a look at the contents and she shuts it again. She holds it tight in her gloved hand.

"I would have settled for your undying gratitude, but this will do," she says.

"Thank you, Erna," he says, mental and emotional exhaustion tingeing the edge of his voice.

"Don't," she warns.

"I apologize," he says, though Levi can tell there's no sincerity to that apology. Smith is doing it on purpose because he knows she hates it. And for some reason she's letting him. That's interesting.

There's a dangerous glint in the Instructor's eye for a quick moment. She purrs at Erwin, "You should bring Zackarius next time. Tell him to tag along when you come for your recruitment drive. I'd take him over bourbon."

Erwin's face darkens and he turns and begins to walk back to his horse, leaving the trio he plucked from the Underground in her care. Erna holds up the bottle of bourbon, examining the label for a moment before seeming to remember something. She yells at Erwin's back, "Hey, dumbass!"

Erwin turns around; the strain of having to deal with her politely beginning to show in the lines of his face.

She tucks the bottle under her arm so that she can cup a hand to the side of her mouth and make her voice carry to him. "Matches!"

Erwin nods. He walks the rest of the way to his horse and he opens one of the bags strapped over its side. It takes him no time at all to find a small bundle of matches. He begins to walk over with them, but instead of closing the distance completely and handing them to her, he stops about halfway and tosses them, not seeming to be able to stomach another second of closeness with the severe and crude raven-haired woman.

She catches them overhand, snatching them out of the air. "Thank fuck," she says to herself, removing a match from the strung together bundle. Then she looks up again. She watches Erwin Smith mount up onto his horse in the distance and says, "Good riddance asshole," looking about as relieved as he did to be done with that.

The blond of the trio in front of her shifts uncomfortably and picks his pack up off the ground. "Um—"

"One second, blondie," Erna cuts him off. Still holding the bottle of bourbon under her arm, she opens the box that Erwin gave her and takes out a small, perfectly rolled cylinder of white paper. She places one end of it between her lips.

The little redhead also starts to squirm with the anticipation building up. "Should we—"

"I swear to fucking god," Erna mumbles while still holding the cigarette in her lips and carefully tucking the box back under her arm, trying to juggle it and the bottle while pinching a match between her fingers. "If you brats don't let me do this, you are going to find me a lot less pleasant to deal with."

Levi scowls. Nobody talks to his brats that way but him.

Erna pays him no mind as she balances on one foot to bring her other boot up. She strikes the match against the tattered sole, worn to a gravel-like hardness by the rough dirt at the floor of the box canyon, and it bursts into flame. Carefully she raises it to her cigarette and puffs until the end is evenly reddened.

Her cheeks pucker as she inhales long and deep. When she exhales it's with a sigh of amazement and ecstasy. "Fuck, that's good," she says in a way that reminds Levi of the lazy, contented tone women thank him with after he's fucked their brains out.

He wonders how this woman became a Training Corps Instructor. He can't see how she can command anyone's respect. Sure, she's coarse and vulgar, but she's also small and fair, with a dainty little nose and delicate bone structure. She's too small and pretty to intimidate anyone. Besides, she doesn't look a day over seventeen.

She stands there in silence and takes a few long, deep drags off the cigarette before finally gesturing for them to follow her as she says, "Let's go."

The training grounds are made up of acres and acres of flat, brown, open spaces, dotted with clusters of buildings in places and broken up by huge wooden structures used for different types of training. Erna points out important things with her cigarette. "Those long buildings over there are the barracks. They're numbered one through twenty. You eat, sleep, and train with your bunkmates. Makes it easy to keep track of you." She pauses her steps and turns around to give them a look like she's only just noticing something. "How old are you?"

The three actually shrug. Erna rolls her eyes. "Do they not have birthdays in the Underground?" She doesn't wait for an answer to her rhetorical question. "Well, you don't look like teenagers."

She taps her foot against the hard ground, pausing to think.

Finally she comes to a decision. "We'll house you in the officers barracks. It's co-ed – so you can stay together and hold each other's hands or whatever – and one man to a bunk instead of two." She turns and looks at them to gauge their feeling on that and is met with blank stares. "Unless you like the prospect of being felt up by some sweaty, hormonal teenager while you're trying to sleep?"

The blond and redhead shake their heads emphatically. The short one is stoic as ever, not reacting to anything. Erna can tell that he's the leader of the three.

She starts walking them toward the building far ahead of them and offset a little to the left of the rest of the barracks. "You'll still have to train with a team of recruits," she tells them. "The Survey Corps is big on that teamwork bullshit, even though they're dying so often nobody gets a chance to build up much team togetherness."

She says it so callously, like she's telling them that water is wet. Farlan gulps down his fear. Isabel cringes.

She hums to herself and thinks. "Probably some space on team ten…cut a couple of trainees' lifelines during 3dm training…probably not out of the infirmary yet."

As they pass by a part of the camp where the trainees are practicing drills, Erna stops the trio while she goes over to one of her officers. Levi keeps an eye on her as she talks to the young man. Isabel and Farlan try to talk to Levi while he's trying to read her lips.

"This'll be easy, right, big bro?"

"She's not so bad. What was that Smith guy going on about?" Farlan says optimistically.

They keep chattering as Levi ignores them. He watches the way the officer reacts to Erna. As soon as he registered her presence he'd squared his shoulders back and seemed to brace himself. The guy has about twelve inches of height on her and looks like two-hundred of pounds of muscle, but his eyes wrinkle at the corners with apprehension and uncertainty, the way kids with an insane or alcoholic parent look at them, loving but afraid and guarded, never knowing if they're about to get hugged or hit.

Erna nods in their direction and says something. A second later she holds out her hand and the officer gives her his clipboard and a pencil.

She walks back, still sucking on her cigarette, exhaling out the side of her mouth now that her hands are full with the bourbon and cigarettes she extorted from Erwin and the clipboard. When she reaches them she simply says, "Names."

"Farlan Church," the taller one says respectfully.

"Good. It's short," she says as she writes.

Isabel looks at Levi before speaking up, checking with him if it's okay. He gives her a small nod and rolls his eyes at her constant need for approval.

"Isabel Magnolia," she says proudly.

"What a pretty name," Erna praises her. "Unfortunately, sweetheart, I don't have time for a lot of syllables when I'm warning you to look out for the tree you're about to smack into at thirty miles an hour during 3D-maneuver training. How do you feel about letting me shorten that to Mags?" Her voice is sweet, cloying, like she's trying to flirt with her.

The redhead is incredibly flattered by the sweet words and agrees without a thought. "Sure!"

She waits for Levi's answer. He keeps his mouth shut until finally she says, "And you?"

"Levi."

"Surnames only here." Erna looks at the clipboard and holds her pencil poised to write his down when he tells it to her.

That's not going to happen.

"Everyone just calls him Levi," Isabel chirps.

Erna looks up and gives him an evil smirk. "If you don't tell me your surname, I'm going to have to name you myself and you're not going to like it."

Levi crosses his arms and stares her down.

She keeps her eyes aggressively locked on his for a second or two. Then, just as quickly, she shrugs, lets her clipboard and pen fall to her side, and says, "Alright Snowflake, have it your way." She turns on her heel and continues leading them toward the barracks.

Isabel doesn't dare giggle at Levi's new nickname. Farlan does a little, but Levi glares at him and he puts on a straight face while Erna continues to walk ahead of them.

She opens the door to the officer's barracks for them and waves them in ahead of her. Pointing to a column of three bunks she says, "Those'll be yours. I'm going to grab an officer to fill you in on the basic shit."

"Tch. This place is filthy." Levi scowls at the state of the small building.

Erna pauses in the doorway. Isabel and Farlan tense up, anticipating one of the violent reactions Erwin told them they could expect from her, which they aren't half as afraid of as they are fearful of how Levi will react to that. Slowly and languidly, she takes her cigarette from her lips. In a smoky, rich voice, she says, "Well then I guess I'll have to send the maid too," and she drops the nearly finished cigarette, grinding it into the floor with the toe of her boot.

Farlan has to hold Levi back as Erna turns and casually walks out the door with a sway of her hips.

Levi calms himself by ordering Farlan and Isabel to clean the place up. They find a couple of brooms while Levi sits on the bottom bunk and rubs his temples. Soon his companions have all of the dust on the floor swept into a neat little pile. That is until an officer comes in and carelessly walks through it.

Levi growls at the man and only then does he looks up from the papers he'd been reading. He sees the scene before him and says, "Oh, sorry, were you guys trying to clean?" sincerely apologetic.

"This place is a dump," Levi tells him.

"Well, we try to keep it tidy," the officer says. "Everyone keeps their stuff put away, but there's always going to be dust everywhere. Cleaning it is a never-ending job."

Defeated, Isabel and Farlan stop sweeping. They'd already had the feeling that what the officer was saying was true, but neither of them were going to tell Levi that.

"Tch."

The officer looks at the papers in his hand again and hums. "So, Church, Mags, and… Levi?" He turns the page over and says half to himself, "Weird that she wrote down your first name…oh well…" He looks up at the trio and says, "Since the situation with your enlistment is pretty unusual, I'm supposed to just fill you in on all the things you would have learned in a typical orientation."

The officer brings a hand to the back of his neck and squints shyly. "Um, I've never had to do this before…"

He has a big smile, a square face, and dark grey hair. He's a little short, but barrel-chested and very strong. He would look like military officer material, except for the fact that he's obviously very kind and maybe not too bright. Levi wonders how the hell he made it to this rank. He doesn't seem like the type to be yelling orders.

"Your name…" Levi says.

"Huh?"

"That would be a good place to start," he deadpans at the hapless officer.

"Oh, right, okay…" The officer collects himself a little. "I'm Officer Vann. There are nineteen other officers and we basically help train you guys and keep this place together."

"Um," he continues, "You're expected to salute whenever an officer or Instructor Raban is around. You guys know how to salute, right?"

Farlan puts his fist over his heart, in what he thinks passes as a military salute.

"Close," Officer Vann tells him. "Just turn your hand around."

Isabel snickers at Farlan who blushes and elbows her in the ribs as he brings his hand back to his side.

"There's a really strict schedule. You start with breakfast at 5am, but there's PT right after, so you don't want to eat too much."

Farlan stops him. "What's PT?"

"Oh, that stands for physical training. Here, I wrote it down for you guys just to make sure you remember, because you'll get in a lot of trouble if you're caught out after curfew or anything like that." He hands a small piece of paper to Farlan, and then says anxiously, "Just don't let anyone see it. I don't know how Instructor Raban would feel about me doing this for you guys."

"She doesn't seem as scary as everybody's been telling us," Farlan points out.

The officer seems to lose his breath. "She's…um…yeah…sometimes she's not…I guess…" Suddenly he's in a rush to move on. "So, that's basically it, you'll learn a lot as you go. Do you have any questions?"

Isabel, who's pretty taken with the officer's kind, shy demeanor asks with that childish wonder that only she can pull off, "What was your first day like?"

"Oh, well, Instructor Kahler was still in charge here when I was a trainee, so it was different than what the recruits here experience. Instructor Raban took over three years ago, so every trainee here started with her. You guys are lucky you don't have to go through a real first day with her. At the orientation day for the class that's about to graduate, she broke a kid's nose."

Isabel makes a surprised sound. "How come?"

Officer Vann stops to think, looking upward while he searches his memory. "You know, I don't even remember anymore… So much has happened since then, it kind of doesn't seem like such a big deal now… I think he called her 'ma'am'? Oh yeah, by the way, don't do that. The only things you want to call her are Instructor Raban or Sir. And try as hard as you can to do everything she says, even if you don't think it makes sense or you think you can't."

Vann shrugs nervously, seemingly uneasy about scaring them too much, but not wanting to understate the situation. "But, you know, don't worry about it. Our infirmary gets the best medical interns. And they've seen everything, so whatever happens they'll fix you up right as rain."

"We're from the Underground," Isabel says proudly. "We don't break that easy. Right, big bro?"

Levi gives her the smallest nod. He's not dumb enough to be as confident as she sounds.

"Well, look, um, I have to get back to work, so…" he looks at his papers again, "You guys can get settled for another fifteen minutes and then you should start training. Sorry I can't give you more time." He flips a page over and finds what he's looking for. "You're going to be training with Team Ten, so you're doing…um…hand-to-hand combat training today."

"Neat!" Isabel shouts and jumps in excitement.

"What does that have to do with killing titans?" Levi asks skeptically.

"Er…well…um…"

Levi rolls his eyes. He almost feels bad for the guy. "Never mind. You can go," he says.

Vann reminds them again that they have fifteen minutes, smiles, and hurries back outside. Farlan unfolds the schedule in his hand and squints at it. "We have to go to classes?" his brows crease with incredulity.

Isabel stands on her toes to look over his arm and she shouts, "Curfew is at 9pm? What are we, eight?"

"Well, at least we get three meals a day. That's a step up," Farlan folds the schedule up again and puts it in the pocket of his tan jacket.

Levi doesn't comment. If he did, it would only to be to remind them that they should be glad they got out of the Underground at all, but now that he's out, he never wants to think about that hellhole again. He stands up, eager to leave the dusty building and get into the free air again. He walks out without a word and his friends follow him.

They join their assigned team over where they saw the drill practice earlier. A different officer greets them, this one more serious than Vann. He curtly explains what they're supposed to do and pairs each of them up with a trainee on their team.

The exercise involves a small, wooden knife. They're supposed to take turns attacking and disarming.

Levi could not be less impressed with the whole thing. He lets his partner go on the attack first, and disarms her so easily every time that it would almost look like she is trying to take a dive on purpose. She's taller than him by about six inches with tan skin, a thin face dotted with freckles, and a short black ponytail. By the way she carries herself, Levi can tell that she is surprised at not being the best at something for once. The third time he drops her down on her shoulder into the dirt she starts to show her irritation.

She smacks his hand away when he offers to help her up. When she gets herself onto her feet again, she throws the knife at him, saying bluntly with a snotty attitude, "Your turn."

Levi turns the knife in his fingers and decides to give her a second to change her stance and lower her center of balance, which she'll do if she's fucking smart. Instead of getting ready, she just crosses her arms and smirks at him. "You're holding it wrong. You don't even know how to hold a knife?"

Levi is about to show her how wrong she is, but then the girl very suddenly switches to standing at attention. For a second it looks like she's saluting him and Levi is confused until he smells tobacco and hears the velvet-smooth, but still menacing voice of their instructor.

"Holy shit, Koh," she drawls. "I must have been in a coma. It looks like I was out long enough for you to graduate, rise several ranks, and become an Instructor. I'm sorry that I didn't get you a fucking congratulatory gift. It looks like you're going to have to settle for a full year's supply of my boot up your ass."

As Instructor Raban comes into view, Levi switches the "knife" to his left hand and salutes, standing at attention like everyone else.

She drops what's left of her cigarette before saying, "Everyone at fucking ease." As everyone relaxes a little, she adds, "Except for you, Koh." She gets very close to Levi's sparring partner and says more quietly, "Are you trying to fucking replace me, trainee?"

"Sir! No, Sir!" she yelps as she stares at a middle distance, not daring to look down and make eye contact with her Instructor.

Erna looks over her shoulder to Levi and opens her hand. "Snowflake, knife."

He tosses it to her and she grabs Koh's right wrist, breaking her salute, and putting the knife in her hand the way she had been holding it before. "What do you think happens if you try to stab me in the heart like that, trainee?"

"Um…"

Erna doesn't wait for her to come up with an answer. "What happens, Koh, is that maybe you hit my heart and maybe you don't. Maybe you miss and I just end up with a deep puncture wound that doesn't disable me – something that I can stanch and patch up so fast it'll make your pretty little head spin."

Erna then takes the girl's fingers, opens them, and turns the knife around so that she's holding it the way Levi had been a moment ago.

"If you ever find the fucking balls to finally try and kill me, Koh, that's how you hold your knife. Can you guess why?"

"No, Sir," she says only loudly enough to match Erna's volume.

Erna tilts her head back and rolls her eyes. "You really are as dumb as you look." She rolls her neck and groans in exasperation. In one quick motion, she tilts her chin back down, takes the knife out of Koh's hand, and spins it in her fingers. As she demonstrates by stepping into her and driving the knife towards the girl's heart in a stabbing motion, she says, "If you stab me and miss, then I can keep fighting, which means you're fucked."

She steps back again, giving Koh room to breathe, though the girl doesn't seem to take the opportunity to do so. She spins the knife again and changes her grip. She steps forward, driving the knife to Koh's right hip and slashing upwards diagonally all the way to her left shoulder. "If you slash this way, you have enough pressure behind it to rip me open from stem to fucking stern. Hell… Even if you don't slash very hard with those skinny arms, you're opening enough veins to make me bleed out and lose consciousness in less than four seconds."

She throws the knife carelessly over her shoulder and Levi catches it.

Koh continues to stand stiffly at attention, though all of her confidence is now gone, replaced by fear and uncertainty. Erna takes a second to look her up and down and then she asks, "You're trying to join the Military Police, aren't you?"

"Sir! Yes, Sir!" her voice shakes a little despite her attempt at sounding resolved.

"Then, you, especially, are going to need to know this shit. And you better thank Snowflake for the favor of showing you how any real thug in Sina is going to be holding their knife when they try to take your worthless life."

Koh swallows and then squeaks out a meek, "Yes, Sir."

Erna steps in close to her and lowers her voice to almost a whisper, "And stop trying to take my fucking job, trainee."

Levi is a little impressed.

She steps back and bellows, "Get back to work!" Nobody wastes a second going right back into the drill.

Levi keeps half of his attention on the drill and half on Isabel and Farlan… especially Isabel. She loses her temper easily and does dumb things.

Erna continues to walk around and observe the team's hand-to-hand combat training, stopping to talk to their officer and check out his notes. He starts telling her who is doing well and who could improve on what, but she isn't actually listening. She's only acting preoccupied with him so that the trainees will relax a little more. When she is actively observing them, they tense up or temporarily show more earnestness. It isn't all that useful for her to see them like that. She prefers to get a feel for people when they think she isn't looking, so a lot of the time it will look like she's absent when actually she is just on the edge of earshot.

She nods at Officer Frey every so often until she hears something. She walks away from him, leaving him hanging mid-sentence. As she comes toward them, the trainees halt their action and salute again.

"At ease," she says while rolling her eyes. Sometimes she gets so sick of the fucking saluting, the regulation of everything, and the meaningless signs of obedience. She wishes that she could do away with all that and run things a little more organically, a little more the way she ran her gang in Wall Sina. But what's a military without meaningless shows of rank?

"Trainee Jung has just provided you worms with a teaching moment," she says as she reaches the short, strawberry blonde girl who she'd overheard a second ago. Erna smiles at her and says, "Sweetheart, you had a question?"

The poor girl looks ready to wet herself. "I…um…Sir…"

"Now don't lie to me, honey, that only makes it worse."

The girl swallows hard and places her hands behind her back. "Sir, I asked my sparring partner how hand-to-hand combat would be useful to us if we enlist with the Survey Corps."

Erna reaches up to the trainee's face and pinches her cheek affectionately. "What a wonderful question, Jung. You're so fucking innocent I could cry." Then she turns to address the whole team. "Can anyone tell Jung why hand to hand combat training is important in the Survey Corps?"

There's an eerie silence. Levi crosses his arms and watches the scene closely. He's learning more and more why everyone seems to hold their breath when their Instructor is around. So far, even just her unpredictability is unsettling. He wonders if there's more to it than that.

"No one?" Erna fakes the surprise in her voice. "Really?" she says, her tone getting darker. She gives them another few seconds before turning to the officer standing off to the side and shouting, "Frey, get me a set of 3dm gear."

Officer Frey drops his notes and runs.

While he's playing fetch, Erna paces between the lines of recruits as she talks to them. "Did you know that I served with the Survey Corps before coming here to play goddamn babysitter for about four hundred weak, lazy brats?" As one trainee opens his mouth to say either yes or no sir, she yells, "Do not answer that, it was a fucking rhetorical question."

She paces a little more. Levi thinks that she moves like a cat sizing up prey.

"Instead of hand-feeding you an answer, recruits, let me paint you a fucking picture. Let's say you do graduate from here by some miracle and finally relieve me of responsibility for your fucking existence… You're on your first expedition outside the walls, for which the expected casualty rate is almost always well over fifty percent. Let's give you more credit than you deserve and assume that by sheer luck you do not end up in a titan's mouth within the first five minutes."

Erna stops around the edge of the team, turns, and stands still for a moment. She pauses in her speech to let it sink in and to see if anybody will be stupid enough to breathe or look at her wrong.

"So," she continues, "When a deviant type titan comes along and decimates your ranks and everybody is out of formation and you see that blue smoke telling you to get your ass the fuck out of there… When you're riding as hard as you can back toward the rally point – alone, because your entire squad is already dead – and another titan comes out of nowhere, missing its reach for you, but knocking your horse out from under you and sending you fucking flying… What do you think another soldier is going to do when they find you bloody and broken in the fucking grass?"

Erna looks around at the recruits' faces. "This," she says, "is where I would like a fucking answer."

Still they remain silent. Levi doesn't blame them. But then Erna yells, "This one is not optional, fucksticks." She makes her way back over to the strawberry blonde recruit who started this. "Maybe you have an imagination, sweetheart. What do you think that soldier is going to do when they find you half-dead?"

"Um…I think, Sir…that they would…help me? Sir"

"That is so goddamn cute, trainee," Erna says quietly. Just then Officer Frey comes back with the gear she asked for. He hands it to Erna who throws it at the trainee and orders her to put it on.

While the girl fumbles with the straps, trying to get the 3dmg on as quickly as possible, Erna addresses the whole team again. "What that soldier is going to do, is look at your bloody face, then look around to see if anyone else is within earshot, and he is going to either kill you if he's merciful, or leave you alive if he's fucked up, but either way he's taking your fucking gas cans and whatever blades you have left to replace his own and when he makes it back to the wall, he'll tell his squad leader that he pulled them off of your corpse and he'll be praised for his shrewd thinking.

"Now," she says, "Just to really drive this point home: This is a soldier who you've worked with, who you've eaten meals with, hell maybe you even got drunk and fucked once or twice. None of that matters. When everything is falling apart around you and your death can ensure his survival, have no fucking doubt that he's going to kill you or leave you for dead."

She looks over her shoulder to check if Jung is finished putting her gear on yet. She's only almost there.

"The humanity that you innocent baby deer are offering your hearts to is ugly and cruel," she says with finality.

Erna returns to Jung and looks her over, checking that she got the gear on correctly. She nods in approval. Then she turns to the girl's sparring partner and says, "Take her gas canister from her."

The two trainees stand still in shock at the new and unexpected orders until Erna begins yelling at them, "You'd better try like your fucking life depends on it, because it does!" and, like her voice was a pistol signaling to start, they're suddenly at each other.

She doesn't need to keep yelling things to impress upon them how serious this is. She walks away as Jung gets knocked onto her back and starts kicking at her partner for her life.

Erna walks over to Levi and addresses him, Farlan, and Isabel. "I hope you three are paying attention, because this concerns you the most," she says quietly and maliciously before walking away.

Isabel and Farlan look on, horrified at the life-or-death struggle going on fifteen feet away from them. The girl's sparring partner reaches for her gas canister and gets a good grip on it. Instead of trying to push him away, the girl is in such a frenzy that she grips his forearm in both hands and pulls it closer. She curls up and sinks her teeth into his wrist.

Officer Frey bites his lip nervously. He clearly wants to stop them, but is afraid of what Erna will do to him if he does. Erna makes her way back over to him and stands next to him, watching. As casually as if she were watching a harmless quarrel, she reaches up and brushes her straightened black hair away from her right ear. Her fingers delicately take the cigarette that she'd tucked there and she brings it to her mouth.

Levi sees her say something to the officer next to her and breaks his transfixed stare from the two recruits fighting like rabid dogs in front of him. He looks at Erna and automatically, even though his eyes are glazed with shock, he lights her cigarette for her.

She smiles with satisfaction and she walks away. Levi watches her hips sway.

He thinks that humanity is, indeed, very ugly and very cruel.


	7. Measure

The way their schedule breaks down, the Underground trio's first day in the Training Corps begins with training and ends with cleaning, dinner, and sleep.

Levi doesn't know what people who enter training have to gripe about. Seems like heaven to him.

He's glad he decided not to skip this. He and Isabel and Farlan had the discussion. He could have killed Smith, gotten the documents they needed, and gone on their way, but no good opportunities seemed possible. They decided to wait for a better opportunity to present itself rather than rush in. Levi will be better able to get the man alone later, after he and his friends are more trusted by the Survey Corps in general.

That trust is going to be difficult to gain. These stuck-up pigs are distrustful of people from the Underground. They think that he and all who are born into the same shitty circumstances are criminals.

For the most part they're right, but what bothers him is how much better they think they are just because they were born up in the light of the sun.

He and his friends take a table to themselves at dinner. The rest of their team is still wary of them, though they're not openly hostile. They have too much else on their minds. Everyone on their team has been quiet, murmuring only in careful, cowardly whispers since training that day. There's a credible rumor that one trainee is still in the infirmary – the one who was ordered to attack his partner. A girl at a table near theirs says to someone in a hushed tone that the medical staff is treating his fever, that he may have a blood infection from the deep bite wound on his wrist. There's a chance that he'll die.

The girl that bit him is at another table. She's still in some state of shock. Her friends pat her back and tell her it's not her fault, but she doesn't seem comforted. It's hard to tell if she's even hearing any of it. And the others around her still seem shaken, like they're unsettled at what potential for cruelty can be found in friends they thought they knew, friends who seemed so sweet and innocent.

Levi isn't surprised. He's seen worse than what happened today.

Isabel and Farlan don't seem too affected, either. Isabel is back to her cheery self; Farlan falls back into his sarcastic and patronizing banter with her easily. Mostly, they're happy about the food.

Levi had thought that the food wouldn't be anything impressive. He'd heard about shortages aboveground and since the military is funded by taxes, he'd expect the soldiers to be eating worse than the civilians. That clearly isn't the case. For dinner they were rationed fresh bread with butter, potatoes, and venison.

"If this is how the military feeds us, maybe we should forget the job and stay on forever," Isabel says as she stuffs her face with the meat first.

"Keep your voice down," Farlan scolds her.

A man's shadow falls over their table as Officer Frey looms in the doorway, blocking the light from the braziers outside. He smiles slightly and walks over to sit with them. He is more relaxed now than the way Levi saw him during training. As if he just heard Isabel, he says candidly, "You guys are lucky you were sent here. This training camp gets better rations than the others, so if you're hungry this is the best place to be."

"I've never had meat before!" Isabel squeals.

Officer Frey is a little taken aback for a second. He smiles at her sympathetically. "Be careful then, or you might get sick."

She does not heed the advice. Instead she stuffs her mouth with bread and chews like a caricature.

Farlan rolls his eyes, completely embarrassed by her. He changes the subject and asks Frey, "You're not eating?" seeing that he doesn't have a tray of food like everyone else.

"Already ate," he explains. "I normally take meals in a different building with the other officers. I just wanted to come by and ask how you three are settling in."

His demeanor now is drastically warmer than it had been when he was overseeing the training of the team. He wasn't cruel during training, but he was authoritative and grim. Levi had thought that was his personality, but now he wonders if that has more to do with the watchful eye of Instructor Raban.

Levi asks shrewdly, "Why is the food better here?"

"Oh, um… I don't know for sure. Anything I could tell you would only be rumors and hearsay."

Levi narrows his eyes. "Then tell us the rumors."

"People say it has something to do with Instructor Raban… I don't know…" he says nervously.

He speaks more softly when it's about her. It's like he's afraid that she's always just around the corner. As far as Levi could see, she's just a small girl. She's obviously a little insane, but nothing to be as afraid of as people seem to be. Maybe he just isn't frightened as easily as some.

"Well," Frey says as he gets up. "Try to get a lot of sleep. PT at six in the morning can be pretty tough when you're new."

Physical training is nothing to Levi. It's too easy. He goes through the exercises without breaking a sweat, in direct contrast to Isabel and Farlan, who look like they might die.

After about ten minutes of their team being led through exercise drills outside by Officer Frey, the short, delicate-looking Instructor whom everyone seems to fear so much strolls over. She carries a cup of tea in her right hand, sipping from it every so often. Levi feels like he hasn't smelled tea in forever.

She looks down her nose and corrects the form of different trainees as she walks around. She does so with the most colorful language possible.

"Church, get your hips up. Are you trying to do a push-up or fuck a groundhog hole?"

When Isabel snickers, the Instructor sneers at her, "You're no better, Mags. Get down there and kiss the fucking ground."

She stops in front of Levi. He can't look up at her as he does push-ups with the rest of the team, but he can see her boots and smell her tea.

She stands there for what feels like a long time, but Levi doesn't break his concentration or stutter or stop. After a minute, she says, "What side do you favor, Snowflake?"

He isn't sure if he should stop exercising to answer her or if she'd chew him out for that. Since he can easily do both, he doesn't stop as he tells her, "Ambidextrous." Then, he hopes she can't see him roll his eyes from her vantage point as he adds, "Sir."

It sounds like she's rolling her eyes too as she says, "Nobody's really ambidextrous."

He stays silent and doesn't argue with her, even though she's dead wrong. He's just as good on his left side as his right. She tells him to switch to one-handed push-ups and he puts his right hand behind his back. After ten of those, she tells him to switch to the right.

He can feel her eyes scanning for any sign of weakness. He keeps going even as she moves around to his left side. She circles him, looking for any imperfection she could criticize.

She tells him quietly, "Don't let your shoulder drop."

He doesn't know what she thinks she sees, but his shoulder isn't dropping. He could do this in his sleep.

The next time he pushes up, his arm extended straight, she tells him to hold that position. Then he feels something light and warm being set down on his back, in between his shoulder blades.

She steps back and says, "Keep going. Don't spill my tea."

He lowers himself slowly, careful not to lean toward his off hip. Pushing back up is harder. Normally he would just explode up, but needing to control the motion and do it slowly almost makes him shake.

After three excruciatingly slow one-handed push-ups finished without spilling any burning hot tea on himself, she takes the teacup off of his shoulders and commands, "Stand up."

She smirks at him a little when he gets up and locks his eyes on hers. Not many people do that. Even her officers seem to avoid eye contact with her. She sips her tea and then gives him a slight nod. "Take off your shirt."

Levi doesn't flinch. He doesn't ask her if he's right about what she just said, he just does it, because if she's trying to intimidate him it's not going to work. He shrugs off the tan jacket with its crossed swords on the shoulder and holds it draped over his arm as he unbuttons his white shirt. She breaks eye contact to look him up and down as he strips.

When the shirt comes off, Erna smirks. She doesn't try to hide how impressed she is. The Underground thug is ripped like she's literally never seen before. Every muscle is sharply defined without an ounce of body fat to soften them. She would be questioning Smith's story about picking him up from the Underground, because there's no way anyone scraping their existence out without sunlight or enough food should be able to gain that much muscle, but the proof is in how pale he is.

She tells him after a barely audible snicker, "Jesus fucking Christ… Okay, Snowflake. You're exempt from PT." She turns on her heel and begins walking away, curling a finger at him and telling him, "Come with me."

He follows her, and the whining Isabel and Farlan are doing as the team switches to mountain climbers falls behind him. His instructor mutters to herself in between sips of that hot black tea that, if they were in a different setting, he might kill to get a taste of, "Put anymore muscles on you and you'll be able to kill us all."

He smirks to himself. He could kill them all now, no more muscles needed. That's more due to his quick reflexes… and practice. But there's the risk to reward ratio to think about, always.

She gives him a look over her shoulder and tells him, "You can put your clothes back on." Then, as she keeps leading him wherever they're going, she says, "I wouldn't have thought you would follow orders so well…"

That makes him bristle. His fingers push especially forcefully at the buttons of his shirt. He wants to beat that smug smile off of her. Taking orders isn't something he's accustomed to. He gives orders.

He takes a deep breath. This whole job is going to be one big exercise in self-restraint. He can't wait to kill that Survey Corps prick whose classified documents are the whole reason for this.

Erna noticed the way his shoulders heaved when she teased him about following orders. Out of the corner of her eye, she can spot the angry way he puts his shirt back on. She smiles to herself and makes it a plan to keep pointing out how well he falls in line if that's what pisses him off the most.

She's so bored sometimes. Not that she doesn't like how everyone fears and respects her and is too afraid to speak up for themselves, but she's excited by the prospect of this new trainee losing his temper and giving her a reason to come up with new, more sadistic, more creative punishments. Not to mention the fun she's going to have learning how to push his buttons. She's almost giddy at the chance that he might push back and finally present her with a challenge. She hasn't felt really challenged or pushed to use her wits since she and Smith were trying to expose and manipulate each other, and that was years ago.

All of the recruits who come through her training facility are pretty much the same to her because of a few key characteristics: they want to be there in some measure, they want to do well, and they are afraid of her. Levi is different. He's defiant. She hasn't seen 'defiant' in years.

They walk up on a couple of officers doing basic maintenance checks on a pile of 3DM gear. She beckons for one of them and they run over to her with a set. Erna shoves the gear at her new trainee and says, "Okay. Let's see why that bushy-eyebrowed fuck took such an interest in you."

There's a portion of the training grounds with poles of giant tree trunks at least ten meters tall that's for more advanced 3DMG training, after the trainees start to get the hang of ascending and rappelling off the cliffside but before they're ready to practice in the real forest. She takes him there directly and tells him, "You can put that on now."

She checks the second hand of the pocket watch in her jacket as he buckles the straps of the harness. She clocks him at about thirteen seconds, which is around above average, but he hadn't looked to her like he was rushing. He could probably be much faster if he wanted to. His fingers are deft and fast at the buckles, never making a wrong movement or hesitating.

He waits for an order.

She puts her watch away.

"Show me what you can do, Snowflake."

His eyes narrow slightly at the nickname, but that's it. He's not the most expressive. He turns around and he's gone suddenly, flying away from her.

Erna hates to admit to being impressed with anyone or anything ever, but as she watches him, she can't deny it. He's very fucking impressive. She's never seen anyone maneuver like him, not even when she was watching the veterans in the Survey Corps.

On top of that, he makes it look effortless. Graceful, even. Of course, he's tireless as well. She should have guessed from his physique that he'd have a ridiculous amount of stamina. After six minutes she gets bored of watching, brings her thumb and forefinger to her lips and lets out a long, high-pitched whistle that he should be able to hear all the way up there.

He comes down easily, even doing a flip and sticking the landing flawlessly.

She rolls her eyes and then looks him up and down. His breathing is as easy as ever. Not a bead of sweat on him.

Erna finds herself extremely interested in him. He's not like what she's used to and it's intriguing in her overall monotonous, chained, and restricted life, so she stares at him, very consciously, making aggressive eye contact as is her habit, and he returns the glare equally which makes it feel like a silent power struggle to her, even though she intrinsically will always have the upper hand. She breaks the silence with, "How old are you, Snowflake?"

He makes a small 'hmph' sound before replying, "Probably older than you."

"You don't look it."

"You don't even look nineteen."

She laughs. Levi doesn't know how old she claims to be, but her laugh is girlish. Still, there's something off about it. It's like a sardonic mockery of an innocent little girl's musical laughter.

She steps closer to him and in a low voice, she paints a pretty picture, "I have free reign here, you know. I could slit your throat for not giving me a straight answer and nobody would question it. The military police would cover it up and you would just be another forgotten cadaver."

He tilts his chin up slightly as if offering his throat for a fair shot. "You could try," he answers back.

There isn't a trace of cockiness to his expressionless voice, but it's there in his body language and it gives her a tingling feeling up her spine. He's underestimating her, of course, but she's used to that. What she isn't used to is being unsure about whether she could take him. After seeing his physique and reflexes, she thinks her only viable mode of attack would probably be psychological or emotional… but he doesn't have any tells of weaknesses in that regard. He's unreadable. Even more so than Smith was. She has a strong feeling that, underestimation or not, he's probably right to think that he would beat her every time in a fair – or hell, even an unfair – fight.

And yet, somehow she has him here all but at her mercy. It's very exciting for her. It's like Erwin brought her a very dangerous predator to put in a cage and play with at her discretion.

Erna smirks and walks a slow circle around him, taking in everything slowly: the outlines of his back muscles that show through his shirt, his straight but relaxed posture, his square stance… When she returns to face him, she says with no small amount of wonder in her voice, "How on earth did they bring you in, Snowflake?"

As she was sizing him up, Levi's been able to do the same. She's different now, without so much of the psychotic drill instructor demeanor, though he has no doubt that aspect of her is genuine, too. She has a hard and alert quality to her at all times. Even when her body language shows any signs of relaxation, it's like a farce – an act to trick you into letting your guard down. He can start to get a feel for the intimidation there that wasn't obvious at first because he was looking for it wrong. When he saw how afraid everyone was of her, he was looking for common affectations of people who try very hard to be intimidating and he found none. She doesn't try; she simply is. Intimidation comes off of her like a pheromone. She's the kind of woman who can make someone say too much, or hold their breath at the wrong times… the kind of woman that, if he wasn't careful, could get in his head and make him so conscious of favoring his right side that he would overcompensate and fall to his left.

So instead of answering her question, he tightens his jaw. He won't risk getting caught in a lie with her, and he can't have her know the truth, that the only reason he was caught was because he wanted to be.

There are, of course, repercussions to his silence. She shrugs and rather uncreatively orders him to get down and do push-ups until she gets tired. She stands there and watches silently, boring holes into the back of his head with her eyes. She doesn't count. She doesn't make him count. That would be pointless, because there's no set number at which she would decide it was enough. Instead of numbers, she decides limits on an individual basis. She watches for muscle tremors, shortness of breath, tears… those are signs that someone has done enough for her.

In her head she keeps a loose count to herself just out of curiosity. Somewhere around one hundred and seventy-five or two hundred, she tells him that he's done even though she hasn't seen the faintest hint of a muscle tremor.

He pauses mid-push up and holds himself there, looks up at her, and asks, "You're tired?"

Him being a smart-ass earns him a hard and swift kick to his left ribs with enough force to knock him to his side. She pushes him over onto his back with the heel of her boot and then brings her foot down hard on his abdomen, knocking the wind out of him. He has to suppress the instinct to fight back, difficult as it is.

She narrows her eyes and watches him get his breath back. She gloats over him and says with a biting and arrogant tone, "Now I am."


	8. Gear

**Author's note: Trigger warning for mentioning rape. Um, physical & psychological torture, graphic depictions of violence. These things are going to be the standard for this fic. Fair warning. You'll need a relatively strong stomach if you're going to stick with me on this one. **

Erna smokes a hand-rolled cigarette and watches the sun slowly rise above the horizon far behind over a hundred trainees going through early morning physical training. Dawn has always been her favorite part of the day. It's full of unanswered expectations and promises, that maybe today will be different.

She has to hope that something soon will be different, because she's so fucking bored.

The underground brats that Erwin brought her gave her some hope at first, but they've turned out to be exceptionally boring as well. They're ignorant of any military protocol, which was expected. Erna can't blame them for that. Her problem with the trio is that they seem to tow the line so fucking well. It's annoying to her.

When Smith brought them, his body language and theirs suggested coercion to her. They were conscripted more or less against their will. She was pretty sure of that, so Erna expected some resistance, some defiance, and she was initially excited at the prospect, because that would be something new for her. Disappointingly, the three new trainees were terribly obedient and unquestioning so far. Her only hold out for hope was in the short, quiet one. Snowflake… What was his real name again? Levi. He looks more feral to her. He's holding something back whenever an order is barked at him. If he doesn't beat anyone senseless or slit someone's throat when they're challenging him, it's because of some ulterior motivation. She wants to find out what that is.

She walks a line behind her subordinate drill instructors leading the trainees through different grueling exercises until she gets to his squad and finds him. Core and leg exercises that make normal people drop and vomit and cry are fucking effortless for him. She would try to come up with something that would be more physically strenuous, but there's a fear that she would try and fail to present a challenge for him. She can't decide where his strength ends. It's hard to get a read on, because he never looks like he needs to put much effort into anything. She hasn't seen him look strained once, unless it's the look he rarely gets, when she can tell he's holding back a sarcastic comment or a punch.

Humans are so interesting, she thinks. Really, they're just animals, only, the "lesser" animals are more authentic. Humans are the only ones that will submit to something weaker than them, aside from the large prey animals like cattle. Around here, that something weaker is Erna. She is strong through will alone, but physically, she doesn't have much more muscle than an average soldier. At least half of the trainees she bullies on a daily basis could probably take her down easily, but they don't, and it feels like an affront to animal nature to her. She's disgusted at the strong who don't use their strength for their own benefit.

Whenever she finds a reason to chew out Levi or make some ridiculous demand of him, and he doesn't lunge at her and break her in two like she knows he could, she feels almost disappointed. What holds him back?

There's a deep resentment in her for the people who let her bully them physically or psychologically. They don't truly have to take it, but they do for reasons that she'll never personally understand. She thinks they would fight back more if they had ever known what it's like to be exceptionally weak and powerless, like her for much of her life.

She doesn't hide her disgust for the underground trio, regularly punishing all three of them for no reason. She'd thought that the three new trainees from the underground would resonate more with her than the complacent, milk-fed progeny of the lower-middle and upper classes. She thought they would share her cynicism more than the trainees who have never known what it's like to be without food or love or shelter. Disappointingly, the blond one and the girl are cheerful as fuck no matter how hard the training is. They must be happy just to finally be together and above ground. Frustratingly enough, their cheerfulness seems to keep Levi in check. She's caught them sharing looks with him when it seems he might lose his patience or his temper, and it seems like something between them reins him in. Ironically, if any of them were to fight back, she would probably go easier on them.

Erna thinks she needs to separate them if she wants to have any fun.

She walks lightly in between rows of trainees on the ground doing push ups until she gets to Levi. The heavy breaths and grunts of exertion are quieted as she walks by. People seem to hold their breath, but nobody dares to get caught slacking off, and they find it in them to move faster and with better form. Levi, in contrast, changes nothing. He acts as if he doesn't even notice her shadow looming over.

Erna presses her boot to his back. He doesn't stop moving, knowing that she would berate him for that. She shifts her weight to lean on him and add about half of her body weight to his back as he keeps doing pushups. He doesn't break a sweat or struggle.

"Is this too easy for you, Snowflake?"

He doesn't answer, because there is no "safe" answer. There rarely are safe answers to the questions Erna asks.

She places her boot back down on the ground and says, "Get up. Let's find something else for you to do."

He follows her silently away from his team. She can feel heads turn, even in the middle of straining to keep up with the drill instructor leading them through physical training. It's unusual for her to separate someone from the rest of their team. She has her reasons for that. She needs the brats to learn to think and act as a group, not as individuals. They do everything together. If she punishes one person, it's normally in a way that keeps them in sight of the rest of the team, not as a warning, but so that they can sympathize. If she takes someone away from the group, it's usually only for very serious infractions, but it's almost unheard of for anyone to be stupid enough to commit anything serious enough for that.

She walks him far away from the rest of the trainees, down the path toward various outbuildings. She hasn't thought of exactly what she's going to do yet. She likes the adrenaline rush of needing to improvise.

Cleaning is usually a pretty good punishment. People hate being made to mop or do laundry. It's boring, tedious drudge work. She's tried that already. It doesn't work with Levi. It might actually be the only thing he enjoys. He's always complaining quietly about how filthy the training camp is when he thinks she's out of earshot, and he would be grateful for more opportunities to improve on the cleanliness of his surroundings.

She stops. He stops behind her. She almost wonders aloud to herself, 'What am I going to do with you?'

What would be intensely frustrating to someone who likes to clean? Making him get dirty is too obvious. She prides herself on being more creative than that.

Finally, after standing still in the path with him for a few seconds, she says, "I have a very important job for you."

He only grunts slightly. That's the most she can ever get out of him.

Erna leads Levi to one of the vacated barracks and tells him to wait outside. She goes in and retrieves a broom from the closet inside. Every barracks has a few basic items for cleaning, like a broom, a mop, and a bucket, which aren't enough for the Underground thug, apparently. She comes out and shoves the broom at Levi. He takes it from her gloved hands, and his eyes almost seem to light up. She was counting on that.

She crushes his hopes by pointing at the well-worn, hard-packed dirt path they're standing on, and she says, "I want you to sweep the sunshine off of these paths."

He barely tilts his head at her, but he doesn't question what she just said. He's not that dumb or reckless.

"That's right, Snowflake." She lowers her eyelids at him and lowers her voice. "You're going to sweep these dirt paths with that broom until every inch of sunshine is gone."

His jaw clenches, and his grip on the broom tightens until his knuckles are white. Erna smiles. As she walks away, she warns, "And if I see you taking a break before you're done, I'll make your friends come help you."

As physically fit as Levi is, even he can't perform the same repetitive motion for more than fourteen hours without suffering pain in his bones and joints. He switches hands on the broom every so often, but that only makes his shoulders get equally sore. By the time the sun finally begins to set, there are blisters on his hands that have started to bleed.

It's only around 8:30pm, when the summer sun has just started to set, that the Instructor finally comes back, looks at the path, and tells him, "Took you long enough."

He wants to ask her why. What the fuck did he even do? Then, she rips the broom from his hands that are almost arthritically frozen around the handle. Waves of pain shoot from his fingers, up his arms, through his shoulders, and settle in his mind, clouding it with black rage.

She looks at the setting sun and clucks her tongue. "Tch. You're almost out past curfew. Not enough time to get dinner and get your hands bandaged. You're going to have to choose one."

Levi can feel Erna's sadistic smile follow him as he stalks off toward the infirmary. He's gone hungry before. Right now the ability to hold a blade again is more valuable to him than food.

Farlan and Isabel murmur sympathetically at him when he finally gets back to his bunk, making his way through the dark just a minute before curfew. Isabel offers him a shoulder rub. He takes one from Farlan, instead. Isabel is too weak to actually work out any of the knots in his neck and between his shoulder blades. He hisses when his friend digs his thumb into a knotted muscle to the right of the base of his neck, and he tells them both, quietly enough that the surrounding officers won't hear, "Before we leave, I'm going to kill her."

They don't try to dissuade him.

Three days later, while ignoring a lecture from one of the drill instructors about equipment maintenance, Levi is still curling and stretching his fingers, staring at the palms of his hands and working through the stinging of skin that's trying to repair itself. He needs to keep re-opening the blisters and letting them bleed by stretching the skin out, or it will heal in a way that keeps his hands curled and inflexible forever, like an old man's.

He's been lucky that training hasn't included anything that requires much grip strength. If they had to spar hand to hand again or do anything that involved holding a blade, he'd be fucked. He would be able to do it, albeit with a lot of pain, but it would delay the healing of his hands.

He turns his attention back to the instructor as he demonstrates how to take the 3DMG apart and put it back together. He and his friends never tried that. It was hard enough to steal the equipment. They wouldn't risk fucking it up.

After a demonstration, it's the trainees' turn to each take a set of gear and practice for themselves. Levi curses under his breath when his fingers struggle with the smaller pieces of machinery. If that vindictive bitch hadn't fucked up his hands, this would be easy.

As soon as he thinks it, she appears in the doorway as if he summoned her. Small as she is, it's as if her shadow blocks any light from filtering through the door opened to the hot summer air, and the whole room darkens, if not physically, then spiritually. Any cheerful banter between friends stops. The drill instructor overseeing their work holds his breath. Only Isabel, too naive to pick up on the darkened mood, and more at ease for being favored by the Head Instructor for some reason, chirps loudly, "Done!" when she's finished assembling her disassembled gear before everyone else.

Levi watches the drill instructor start to move towards her and then quickly pull himself up and stop as Erna does the same with a glint in her sharp, grey eyes. It's like watching a wolf yield a kill to the more dangerous animal. Isabel smiles up at her Instructor, too trusting of the sweet, amused smile Raban graces her with. Levi and Farlan have tried to make sense of why she is exceptionally nice to Isabel to no avail. Not much of what she does seems to make sense on the surface. Levi can only figure that the preferential treatment is an attempt to divide them.

Erna picks up the 3DMG and looks it over. She asks with almost sisterly concern, "You're sure, Mags?"

"Yep!" Isabel grins from ear to ear.

Levi doubts she would have actually gotten it put together correctly that quickly, but who knows. There aren't any extra pieces on her table, and sometimes Isabel can be surprisingly competent.

Erna gently puts the gear back on the table in front of Isabel and then ruffles her red pigtails affectionately.

"Good job, sweetheart."

In a split second, her demeanor changes back to its icy coldness to address the entire team. "You better be very fucking confident in your gear. Don't half-ass this like you do everything else."

She turns on her heel and leaves without any other warning. Once she's gone, the drill instructor overseeing the exercise seems to let out a giant breath, and he comes over to Isabel who is still beaming and proud of herself. He warmly asks her to take her 3DMG apart and assemble it again until everyone else has finished.

It's an interesting dynamic that Erna has with the way she affects the behavior of her subordinate officers and drill instructors, and Levi thinks that she knows it. When she's cruel, they are more compassionate in her absence. It brings them closer to the trainees, like she is giving them a common enemy to fear, and then the trainees seem to work harder with more fidelity toward their officers and instructors. Levi could admire the brilliance and the manipulative nature of it if he were sure that it were intentional, but he still can't decide whether anything she does is done with a keen awareness or the accident of insanity.

They assemble and disassemble 3DMG for two hours. The drill instructor goes over other points of maintenance that are a review for everyone else, but new to Levi and his friends. They repeat the action until it almost becomes muscle memory. They're told that the gear they're working on now will be theirs for the duration of their military service. They'll wear it every day and be solely responsible for its maintenance. When they're finally dismissed, Erna is waiting.

She stands outside in the blinding sun, flanked by a few officers, smoking a cigarette. As the trainees file out, she says simply, "Come with me."

She takes them on a long walk that the trainees around Levi treat like a death march. They go far past all the buildings, and the group's overall anxiety begins to build with the uncertainty of what she's about to inflict on them. She takes them all the way to the edge of camp, the cliffside, and then turns around to face them with a bored expression.

"You're going to be scaling and then rappelling down the cliff…again. The only way to see if you've done a good job putting your equipment together is to use it."

The group relaxes. Levi takes it that this is something they do often.

"This time you won't have a life line."

Farlan asks someone next to him what that is. They tell him that it's a rope harness that saves you if you fall.

"So I hope you're fucking confident in that gear you just put together."

There's some hesitation to proceed, everyone standing still, hoping that she will say more and stall the dangerous exercise, but she only squints hatefully at the group and then shouts, "Move!"

They fan out, giving each other safe distance. Levi looks up the vertical wall of dusty, red rock and then to his right and left at Farlan and Isabel. They nod to him that they're ready, and, even in this setting, they wait for him to tell them to go. They don't do anything without his permission.

Using the 3DMG to go up vertically is more challenging than arcing back and forth from one building to another. There's more of a leap of faith involved when one pushes off the wall to get an angle at which one can see the point above to aim the anchors. There's a moment every time where he's free-falling in between retracting the anchors and shooting them again. Most people play it safer and leave one anchor in where they are until they sink the other one into the rock above them, but it's slower. Levi doesn't like to go slow if he doesn't have to.

Erna watches him from the ground, taking a cigarette that was tucked behind her ear. She brings it to her lips and mutters, "Cocky motherfucker…" as one of the officers scurries to light it for her.

Levi gets to the top first and looks down. He estimates that the ground is probably 150 feet away. As he's thinking about his descent and how few jumps he can pull it off in, he notices how far behind everyone else is, even Isabel and Farlan, though they're closer than most. He hangs there for a minute before starting to descend. He lets his friends catch up more, though he still starts on his way down before they get to the top. As he's passing her, Isabel chirps, "This is so easy!"

She says that about most things, even when they're not, because of her insecurity about always being the younger, less experienced one in any group of people.

"Don't show off, brat."

Her "Aww, why not?" just barely catches his ear as he retracts the anchors holding him and let's himself free fall about 20 feet down before shooting them at the rock again and hitting the gas so that he won't get stopped up short.

One of Erna's officers hands her a small pair of binoculars, and, as she watches the trainees, she makes silent bets with herself about who will fall by sheer accident, nerves, or equipment failure. She would get the officers in on it and put down money, but that would require talking to them as opposed to just giving them orders. She doesn't do that. She doesn't allow anybody under her (and very few above) to be social with her, so she keeps her predictions to herself.

She watches those she expects to fail more closely, waiting for them to fuck up, which means, for once, she isn't scrutinizing Levi. She does, however, center her binoculars on his red-headed friend. Her bet is on equipment failure, since the girl is too stupid to get nervous and too good at omnidirectional maneuvers to slip up.

Erna starts to worry about her normally sharp ability to forecast incompetency as the young girl reaches the top of the cliff, but after she starts the descent, Mags doesn't let her down. The equipment failure Erna predicted is a snagged cable, easy to prevent when you're careful, deadly if you're not. She follows with her binoculars as the girl falls, and she starts to plan how she's going to tell Erwin about it. In a letter? Probably not. She wants to see his face when she tells him with graphic detail what happens when a body hits the ground from 150 feet up.

She clucks her tongue with irritation when Levi pushes off the cliff wall and swings himself to the side, grabbing his friend's hand and unlocking his cables at the same time so that his arm won't get ripped out of it's socket by the velocity of her falling body.

"Tch. Clever little shit," she mutters to herself as her officers look on in awe.

She grinds her teeth as Levi locks his cables and braces his muscular legs against the rock. He pulls Isabel up a bit higher so that she can grab his waist and free his hands. Through her binoculars, Erna can see that the girl is wide-eyed and sobbing. She doesn't see what there is to cry about. She's going to live, after all. She's going to get away with a normally deadly oversight without even a broken bone as a penalty. She should be overjoyed.

"Sir?"

The tremulous voice of a hesitant and wary officer breaks her concentration. She looks over and follows their eyeline to see what's so concerning and sees another of her picks for her personal bet falling from near the top of the cliff.

"Save him, I guess," she says unable to hide her still fresh annoyance.

The officer is off, maneuvering up to grab the trainee before he can hit the ground before Erna gets out the, 'I guess,' part. Her officers practice complicated omnidirectional maneuvers forward and backwards just for shit like this. It's one thing to be able to save yourself with your 3DMG. It's another, much more difficult and complicated thing to be able to use it to save someone else. It's not something Erna would ever try.

Levi bucks Isabel up onto his back so that she won't get shot through the leg with an anchor as they maneuver down. She wets his neck and shoulders with tears as he tells her, "Calm the fuck down. You're fine." She knows that, but the shock of falling has her incoherent and emotional. With the added burden, he loses his head start on the other trainees and is one of the last to make it down, relieved to finally deposit his friend on the ground.

She crumples to her knees, still sobbing, but Farlan, who made it down before them, picks her up and diffuses the intensity of her tears with a big hug and admonitions of, "You dummy. When are we gonna stop needing to save you?" Then, he ruffles her hair and pinches her cheek like she's a little kid until she gets too annoyed with him to cry anymore.

"Sorry, big bro," she sniffles after shoving Farlan away.

Levi looks down at his palm. The hand he caught her with is bleeding again. "Ripped the shit out of my hand," he mutters at her.

He's distracted from her tearful apology by a commotion off in the distance. Not too far. He looks past Farlan who catches his glance and turns to look, too.

Levi tilts his head curiously. He starts to walk closer to hear and see better. Then he stops, barely wincing at the familiar, sickening sound of cracking bone as Instructor Raban grabs one of his fellow trainees from the arms of an officer, shoves him down, and breaks his jaw with a vicious kick to the face before his head even hits the ground. Isabel and Farlan close their eyes at the spray of blood that erupts from the trainee's mouth, but Levi can't look away. He's entranced by the change in Raban's entire demeanor. Her movements are no longer controlled and quietly, confidently graceful, but they're efficient and powerful, putting every ounce of force she has into every kick aimed with predatory accuracy at vital organs and bones. Her voice isn't low and calm like he's always known it to be. There's none of the sarcastic indifference one could normally identify her by. Instead, she is roaring with rage.

"You incompetent piece of shit!"

The trainee rolls onto his side, facing away from her. She kicks him in the lower back, probably doing severe damage to his kidneys.

"What made you think your life is yours to be reckless with?!"

She lifts the heel of her boot and brings it down on his femur. The trainee wails and curls in on himself, a low, wet sound forcing its way out through all the blood in his mouth as he reaches for the leg. Erna leans over him, narrowing her eyes at his sniveling, sobbing, broken face, and she says icily, "Your life, as worthless as it is, belongs to me for as long as you're here."

She kicks him in the stomach. Anyone close enough can actually hear the air leave his lungs. Fortunately, for those who have trouble watching, this means he can't wail or sob anymore. He goes silent. Erna's voice rises again, "And if _I_ want to take it from you, I will!"

She places the sole of her boot on his throat just as he starts wheezing to get air back into his shocked lungs as if she's considering it.

Levi has a good vantage point and can see it in her eyes. She is deadly serious. He might be witness to a sloppy, bloody, impromptu execution. He looks to his side for a second just to make sure that Isabel isn't watching, but her eyes are tightly shut. She knows, too.

"You don't get to take that privilege from me."

Levi expects her to finish the poor soul off, but, instead, Instructor Raban pushes at the trainee's shoulder with her toe to roll him over onto his back. There's a gurgling sound as he starts fighting to not choke on his own blood.

Erna shouts to an officer, "Bring a gurney! Get this fucker out of here!"

One of them turns and breaks into a dead run toward the infirmary. While she waits, she beckons another officer over and starts giving them notes, no longer roaring, but loudly enough for most to hear.

"If his brain isn't bleeding, I want him learning how to take apart and put together his 3DMG. If that femur is broken, have him do it sitting up in his cot. I want him doing it, reading about it, fucking thinking about it, to the exclusion of everything else. I want him to have fucking dreams about every screw and pin in that gear. I want him to get so fucking intimate with that gear that he won't be able to get hard without closing his eyes and thinking about engineering blueprints of trigger mechanisms for the rest of his short, miserable life. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir!"

She then leans over with the cigarette she'd been holding carefully between her gloved fingers the whole time. She puts it out in the small puddle of blood and sand right next to the trainee's face. As she stands up, she informs the officer who saved the kid from falling only so that she could nearly kill him, "I don't want to be bothered for the rest of the day."

"Yes, sir!"

Levi watches her carefully as she walks away from the bloody mess she created, morphing with every step back into the quietly severe, terribly calm woman she's been since Erwin introduced them. As she nears them, her eyes flash. She seems to remember something and pauses for a split second. Levi sees her grey, compassionless eyes lock on Isabel, and he instinctively grabs the younger girl's arm and moves her behind him as Erna walks over without any sense of urgency in her gait.

She stops in front of Levi. He squares his shoulders, ready to kill her if she tries the same shit with his friend.

Erna smirks at him. She looks past his shoulder and addresses a cowering Isabel and says almost sweetly, "You're fucking lucky," she looks Levi up and down, then adds her usual pet name for Isabel, "sweetheart," though she's looking right at Levi when she says it.

He holds her eyes for a second, and, in the moment, he can't tell if he's feeling hatred or attraction. It could be both. He doesn't know that those things need to be mutually exclusive. What he does know is that she's fucking impressive.

As she sidesteps around him and continues on her way, he catches her scent, something like soap and lemons and charcoal, somehow. Maybe she's a demon from hell. He's never seen a human like her, even in the underground, where there's no shortage of cruelty or psychopathy.

Everyone watches her walk away out of abject fear. Levi's head turns for a different reason. It's been a long time since he found any woman interesting enough to be alluring.

Once she's gone, the team's drill instructor, not knowing what else to do with the traumatized group, takes them back to go over 3DMG maintenance again. It would be pointless to try to teach them anything new while they're in psychological shock, so he reviews, and he doesn't care much about whether or not anyone is listening. He just has to keep them out of sight until the hour they're free to go clean up and eat dinner.

Farlan helps Isabel figure out what she got wrong when she put her 3DMG back together. Levi refuses to do anything with his hand open and bleeding again. He sits there and watches them absently, wondering about Instructor Raban, and how she came to be where she is. He wonders where they found her. She acts like a criminal or a killer, like someone from the underground.

When dinner time comes around, Levi finds out that he isn't the only one who is curious. Gossip flows freely from table to table.

"I heard she always wears gloves because she doesn't have any fingernails."

"Did you know she doesn't sleep? That's why she's insane. The people on watch at night say her cabin is never dark."

Normally, no one even mentions her name as if the utterance of it might make her appear, like they think her name is powerful enough to summon doom. It seems that, after an especially traumatic event, people can't help themselves. It's a way of coping, like gossipping about a serial killer with news of new murders. Everything comes under speculation.

"I think she's a lesbian," one male trainee says, as if that adds to the Instructor's cruelty and mental instability.

He immediately gets called out on his stupidity by a girl next to him. "Fuck you. What would that have to do with anything? What even makes you think that?"

"She's a lot more harsh with men."

"She's more harsh with you because you fuck up more, dipshit. She isn't any nicer to us. Remember when she broke Hope's nose because she 'didn't like her name'?"

Levi smirks to himself at that.

A third trainee joins their conversation and says, "Would it matter if she were straight or gay? Can you even imagine having sex with that?"

Others shudder, but Levi can imagine it. It would be violent and feral, and for once he wouldn't have to be careful about being gentle and not breaking someone. The idea appeals to him more and more, but he doesn't treat it with seriousness. Realistically, he and his friends are just going to keep their heads down and get through the next two months without incident. Then they'll join the Survey Corps, and he'll never see Raban again.

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

Over the next week, Levi's idea about keeping his head down gets challenged more and more. Instructor Raban has made it a point to stick with his team ever since the cliffside incident and oversee every detail of their training, much to the relief of literally every other drill instructor and trainee in the entire camp.

She cites her reason for more involvement as their "gross incompetence", but, contrary to that excuse, she concentrates on Levi, the most competent one on the team. It doesn't make sense to him.

It doesn't have to. No one can question her methods. All he needs to know is that nothing he can do will be good enough for her. He doesn't care. He doesn't have the incentive to try harder like the regular trainees do. He isn't competing for a rank, and he'll be out of there in less than two months whether she thinks he's ready for the Survey Corps or not, so he takes the verbal lashings with unshakeable stoicism, which annoys her, and he's pleased to see her annoyed. Every day, she seems to grow more irritated as she realizes the futility of it all, as it sinks in that she can't touch him.

By her reactions, he can tell that she isn't used to a challenge. He isn't, either, but being presented with one in the form of a beautifully severe woman whose preoccupation with him is turning into an angry obsession doesn't bother him the way it should. When she's especially hard on him or tries to humiliate him, Isabel and Farlan assume that he must be a saint to put up with it without shouting back or losing it and choking her to death, but he rarely gets the urge to push back. Maybe because he can tell that she wants him to.

She glares down at him from her horse, a twitchy, dark bay mare that looks as unpredictable as its rider. As the team's drill instructor tells them that they'll be running 15 miles down the forest trails and back, Levi stares back at Erna. He watches her hands in their tight, black leather riding gloves. she has a loose grip on the reins in her left and a tense, bone-crushing grip on the three foot long dressage whip in her right. He feels sure that it isn't for the horse.

A collective intake of breath is barely audible through the whole twenty person team when, before they've even started, she informs them that anyone who averages more than seven minutes a mile for the run will have another year of training to look forward to.

One trainee asks the person next to them if she can do that.

As if she heard, Erna adds, "There's no rule set in stone that says I can't keep you here for as long as I want. If you don't reach my standards, I don't see how you have a right to go inflict your incompetent bullshit on whatever branch of service you were thinking of joining. It's not as if the military is suffering from a shortage of stupidity and laziness."

Levi wonders if the threat is serious. Not that it affects him. But they're in full uniform, 3DMG and all, which isn't the most conducive to running, and carrying packs of basic supplies on their backs. Seven minutes per mile is unrealistic. He can do it, and maybe one or two others who are more fit than the rest, but he would guess that the rest will vomit and pass out just trying to get anywhere near that time.

Erna takes a watch out of the jacket underneath her green cloak embroidered with the crossed swords of the Training Corps. Her shrewd eyes squint at it, and, without looking away, she says, "Go."

Though much quieter, her voice has the effect of a starting pistol. Most people sprint to start. Not a good idea.

Erna reins her horse to the side, not letting it follow yet. Watching people run is about as fascinating as paint drying. She plans on cutting through the woods, giving herself some quiet time to think, before coming out further down the trail to check their progress.

She only has a little more than six weeks before Smith comes back and takes away the most interesting thing in her life since before she lost her freedom. She's a little depressed about it. Best to think of how she can have fun with her toys before he takes them.

Levi has turned out to be like a puzzle, much the same way she viewed Erwin for the duration of her six months with the Survey Corps. They are different, but the same – stubborn and indecipherable.

She likes that. Levi is even more difficult than Erwin, who, from context alone, she could at least safely assume a few basic things, like his background and morals. All she knows about Levi is that the Military Police arrested him and his friends in the Underground for stealing three sets of maneuver gear, and then the Survey Corps, for some reason, offered them a chance to trade service for prison. She doesn't even know his full name.

That's not enough for her and her morbid curiosity. Her best offense is her ability to read people, and it eats away at her when she can't. She gets incredibly frustrated trying to see past Levi's expressionless face and trying to hear even a hint of subtext in his monotone deadpan.

She reaches above her head for a small, wild apple hanging from a branch to give to her horse later. The few horses in the training camp are the only animals she respects there, humans included. She's never seen any of them suffer rough treatment or disrespect without bucking, kicking, and biting. The rest of the brats around here could learn a lot from them.

When she makes it to her destination much further down the path, she dismounts and waits. Her horse nudges at her jacket with its nose until she surrenders the apple, and while she holds it out in her palm for the animal, she takes out her watch, holds it down near her hip, and narrows her eyes at it.

When the first trainee runs past with small pairs and groups lagging behind, all with limbs like lead and gasping lungs, she shouts, "I'm fucking flattered that you brats want to spend another year with me, but the sentiment isn't mutual, so move your asses, or I will make your extra time a blacker hell than any of you can imagine!"

As more run past, she elaborates on her plans for them.

"Half rations! Earlier wake up calls! Marches in the sun until your fucking brains boil in your skulls!"

It proves very motivating, with the exception of one group that does not see the need to run any faster. Erna drops her reins when she sees them and she shouts, "Stop right fucking there!" as she stalks over, her blood reaching its boiling point.

She ignores the other two and only addresses Levi. "I know you can run faster than this."

He doesn't answer her, but the blond one has his thumbs desperately hooked in the shoulder straps of his pack as if that might help ease the weight and is wincing like he developed a cramp in his side with the first half mile. She gathers that running isn't his thing, and Levi is only slowing down for him.

Fucking loyalty. She hates it when it isn't for her.

"Church, Mags, drop your shit."

They look at her with confusion, so she clarifies with a roar. "Drop your fucking packs!"

They hurry to get the forty-some odd pound packs off of their shoulders and drop them on the path while other trainees veer around them, not daring to slow down or rubberneck. Erna picks one up and then the other, tells Levi to hold his arms out, and then adds one to each of his shoulders. Since she already knows he won't ask why, she takes it on herself to make this a teaching moment and moves back to face him again. She can't even begin to hide the disgust and contempt in her voice as she tells him, "You're going to need to get used to carrying your friends' dead weight."

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

Things change minutely after that. Erna doesn't know if it was the comment about his friends' dead weight or if it's the exhaustion and physical pain and humiliation she takes a personal hand in making sure is a part of every aspect of Levi's training, but he's different. He looks at her differently. He still doesn't talk or disobey, but his eyes follow her every muscle twitch with an intense focus. It makes her feel…unsafe.

Her heart drums slightly harder when he stalks her movements with his eyes. She likes feeling unsafe. There was a time when she was more practical and more risk averse, but boredom has made her less inhibited about fucking around with danger, so she pushes Levi, hoping to see what it will look like when he snaps.

When it finally happens, it's so fast that she almost misses the fire in his eyes before he extinguishes it under the cool damper of disciplined self control. It comes in the form of a lightning quick hit to her face with a broom handle while she's in the middle of berating him as he sweeps the officer's barracks before dinner.

It's a quick crack, and then it's over, and he's looking at her as if nothing just happened, his face expressionless and that sudden flame gone from his cold eyes.

Of course, she has to match that. She can't let on that she finds the violence shocking and thrilling. She can't tell him that the severe pain searing her nerve endings feels so much better than complacency. She stares back at him, equally expressionless as two of the quicker-thinking officers force him to his knees as blood trickles down from her nose to stain the edge of her upper lip a deep red.

Her eyes move to the broom now laying on the floor, and she thinks wistfully that she wishes it had been his fist. Some physical contact would have been nice. When they ask her if she wants him thrown in solitary confinement, she laughs. Obviously that is what she should do. It's the most severe punishment she has available to her, and this is the most severe infraction that has ever happened at the camp. Solitary confinement is dreaded by everyone: officers, drill instructors, trainees. No one is safe from the psychological torture that comes from simply being isolated in the dark behind noiseless walls without food or water for however long Erna deems necessary.

She doesn't want that for Levi. She would miss him for however long she kept him in there, and, on the off chance that it did break him, she wouldn't be able to catch a glimpse of that fire again.

Besides, there are better ways to make an example of someone.

Erna turns and goes over to the officer closest to the door and whispers something to him. As he scurries out, the others ask her again about Levi's punishment, and she responds this time with more annoyance at them than at Levi or the situation, "No. Just don't let him fucking move for now."

They shut up. The two holding him grip a little tighter at his arms, though it was obvious from the beginning he wasn't going anywhere anyway. Erna smirks because it's obvious, to her, at least, that if he wanted to fight, two people wouldn't be a problem, nor would the other five officers in the barracks nervously watching and shifting their weight, afraid to move or speak.

She sighs wistfully and tilts her head back a little, pinching the bridge of her nose to try and slow the blood flow. One of the female officers steps forward hesitantly, and in a meek, scared little voice, squeaks, "Um, sir…maybe you should go to the infirmary…"

"What the fuck for?" Erna asks.

"It…just…um… I think your nose might be broken…"

"My nose," Erna replies, "is definitely broken. Good catch." She rolls her eyes and catches Levi smirking at her for only the shortest moment. It's a smug twitch of the lip, and then it's gone.

He could have kept hitting her if he'd wanted. She wouldn't be able to fight him off without a weapon. Maybe not even with a weapon. He could have hurt her much worse before anyone might have been able to stop him. She can only assume that, for some reason, he was satisfied with just that one hit.

She says to no one in particular, "Get me a towel," and finally there's a small flurry of activity to break the dreadfully boring stagnation of fear and hesitance that had settled over her officers. The one she sent out runs back in while the others make themselves busy, and he carries out the instructions she'd whispered in the doorway.

Levi allows him and the two others to wrench his arms behind his back, and he holds still while they put the handcuffs on. Erna snatches the small, white hand towel offered to her and wipes away as much blood as she can from her face. She steps in front of Levi, now fully restrained by tight metal handcuffs, tosses the bloody rag at his chest, and stares down at him as she tents her fingers in a triangle over her broken nose and, with a quick movement, snaps the bone back into its proper placement with an audible crack.

She isn't immune to pain. A wave of nausea and dizziness hits her the same way it would anyone else, but it doesn't compare with the sheer agony of having one's fingernails ripped out. It is comparative experience alone that makes it so she's able to stifle any visible reaction and keep her expression cold and calm.

The officers at Levi's sides lift him up by the arms as if they're expecting her to tell them to take him somewhere. Erna tells them to let him go and then ignores them. She only addresses Levi, glaring at him, giving him her undivided attention.

"You're not going to solitary. I don't have the fucking time allotted to waste on putting you in time-out. You're going to keep training the same as ever. You're just going to do it without your hands." She walks to the door without threats, without creative insults; she simply says over her shoulder, "Have fun."

At first, Levi thinks he got off pretty fucking easy.

He soon begins to appreciate how brilliant Erna is when he realizes the difficulty of trying to eat or take a piss without hands. It might not have been so bad for anyone else, but Levi has too much pride to let himself be dependent on anyone. He would rather starve than let Isabel feed him. He would rather sleep in a filthy uniform than let Farlan help him undress.

He gets to enjoy some admiration from the other trainees who find out about what happened through the grapevine. At first, it seems to everyone that, rather than making a cautionary example of him, Erna's decision to keep Levi visible has raised the morale of the trainees. It seems that way until the passing of time makes it unsettling. The enthusiasm that they felt at finding out their Instructor isn't invulnerable fades as dried blood cakes Levi's wrists. There are no more pats on the back as he loses weight and his face starts to look more gaunt. Nobody envies him when Erna supervises their team's physical training, and against all reason kicks him brutally in the ribs for not being able to do a push up.

The sight of Levi begins to make even the officers uncomfortable. They are completely confused as to what to do with him. It hardly seems fair to punish a trainee for things he is literally unable to do. When Erna checks in on his team's training one day and tells the drill instructor to not treat Levi any differently, they freeze, completely unsure as to what to do while she walks away and too afraid to ask her. How can they make him participate in 3DMG drills if he can't move his arms?

They fear her more than ever, not because she is violent and unpredictable, which they already knew, but because she is merciless or insane or sadistic—they can't tell which. Not being able to label something makes it that much more terrifying.

After seven days, she stops his team early in the morning. Their drill instructor chews his lip nervously as Erna walks past him like he's invisible, and trainees nearly jump out of the path she makes to Levi.

Her eyes fucking burn into him as she says coldly, "Kneel."

Levi stares at her dispassionately. He gets down on his knees carefully, it still being difficult to balance without the use of his arms, but he refuses to look away.

There is expectant, gut-clenching silence as Erna walks around behind the prostrate Levi and pulls a small key out of her jacket pocket, quickly bending down to unlock the handcuffs and remove them. Once his hands are free, there's a collective intake of breath, as if every surrounding person thinks he'll do something violent again. Only Erna is calm and confident in her safety.

He stays on his knees until she walks around in front of him again and says, "Up," like he's her fucking dog. He rolls his neck first, relieved to be able to actually let his shoulders rest for the first time in seven days. Then, he stands up.

He's an inch taller than her. It's not really enough to look down at her, but, somehow, he does. She smirks at the defiance in his eyes like she's still sure he won't do anything, and she pats her hip, telling him, "Heel."

Levi follows her away from the group, walking at her side like a pet. When they're far enough away from anyone to not be heard, she finally says, mostly to herself because he never responds, "You know, I don't know why you let me do any of this, but I know it isn't out of some bullshit sense of submission to authority or patriotism." When they're in between buildings, out of sight from everyone participating in the hustle of early morning training, she suddenly places a hand on his arm and a palm against his chest, spinning him and pushing his back against the wooden exterior of the building at her side.

To him, it almost seems like she's angry that he doesn't fight back.

She gives him a feral look, stepping into him so that he can smell the soap that she uses and the slightly burnt ends of her straight-ironed hair. He can smell her morning cigarette and the bittersweet scent of tea on her tongue as she asks him in a low voice, "Do you know why I call you Snowflake?"

Rhetorical question or not, she isn't getting an answer from him. She lets him in on the secret anyway, squeezing his bicep and splaying the fingers against his chest a little wider, letting them slide down over his muscles, too strong to have suffered at all from a week of disuse. "It's because you're so pale," she says with a dark dreaminess. She inhales sharply. "And you look like you would melt on my tongue."

Levi's eyelids lower, but he keeps his mouth set in its grim line. He tries not to react in any way, because in that moment he isn't even sure how he wants to handle himself. Arousal builds quickly into a growing, insistent need. He feels even hungrier than she looks as her eyes travel down over his abs to settle on his crotch. She makes him ache for the chase, the conquest, the domination, but he also fucking hates her, and she wants it. He can tell. She's humiliated, and she has tormented him too much for him to give her anything she wants.

Abruptly, she steps back again, taking her hands off of him and giving him back his personal space. Her eyes return to normal, and she taps him on the shoulder to follow as she guides him away and out into the open again.

As they continue their walk, and Levi wills his cock to stop instinctively getting hard, she tells him offhandedly, as if they're only talking about the weather, "You know, I had a dream last night. You'd had an accident in advanced 3D maneuver training. I forget how, but you hit the ground awkwardly from a good height and broke your spine or severed a nerve a bit or something. Anyway, you were somewhat paralyzed." She keeps talking without looking at him. "You were still conscious, which was nice, because you could still give me that look—kind of like the one you're giving me right now—while I raped you."

He's glad she isn't looking at his face. She would be too satisfied to see the slight shock it's showing.

She reaches inside her jacket and pulls out the handcuffs she removed minutes ago, twirling them around her finger. "Would have been easy to do while you were still wearing these, but," she says, "you're fucking filthy. You smell like shit, you know?"

Finally they get to the building he recognizes as the infirmary, and she shoves him through the door. She follows on his heels and stops the nearest doctor, telling them, "Get this one cleaned up and make sure his shoulders haven't dislocated."

Without even giving him enough of a second thought to meet his eyes, she turns on her heel and leaves. Off to torment some other unfortunate soul, he's sure.

After that, Erna feels better. The course of events of getting her nose broken, punishing him horribly for it, and then confusing him with a candid confession makes her feel rather cleansed and like she can finally get past the things he makes her feel. She leaves him alone for days and is almost able to forget about her obsession entirely.

Levi's obsession only grows. In two days, when he's strong again and the soreness in his wrists and shoulders has begun to fade, he tells Isabel and Farlan in a carefully hushed tone that he's going to kill her. This time they argue, because this time they can see he's really going to do it, and they're worried about how that's going to affect their whole plan, but he won't be deterred. He tells them that it won't fuck anything up. He's going to do it at night, and quickly, more like an assassination, rather than his usual way of doing things. They look at him nervously. Isabel chews at her lip and Farlan shoots her a look, but they give up on trying to talk Levi out of it.

He might not be thinking clearly. A full week of torture and humiliation will do that to a person. Nonetheless, he has a need to make her writhe in pain and wail with anguish. He won't be able to go back to thinking clearly until he does.


	9. Glass

**Author's note: Rape(?) dubcon, violence, blood, vague references to past sexual abuse of a minor, etc. etc. etc.**

The candle flame flickers when Erna pulls it closer to supplement what little light filters through her window. The moon is new tonight, which means it isn't much help as she sits at her desk, answering letters and recording shipments and payments. The Military Police had offered her an accountant for this. It was standard. She declined and told them it was a waste, as she was perfectly capable of keeping track of a few numbers on her own. She left out the part about how a large part of her books would be extortion, blackmail, and bribes. Really, they should have expected as much, and even if they did give her the benefit of the doubt, they had to at least wonder how she always had a stock of luxury items that other camps couldn't afford, like tea for herself and healthy food for the brats, but she's an expert and she never leaves a trail of evidence. Nothing wrong with accepting "favors".

She gives her eyes a break to look out the window over her desk and scan the starry sky. She hates new moons. She needs more light than that. She clears her desk and gets up to light a few more candles.

For obvious reasons, Erna has issues with darkness.

She has a few "quirks" thanks to her time with Nile. She appreciates certain things that, before, she wouldn't have cared about or even noticed. There's the aversion to small, dark spaces. That one makes sense, but there are also a few she hasn't bothered to think about enough to try and make sense of, like the reason that she has a thing now for soft beds and long showers and maybe a preoccupation with caring for her skin. She has an inclination toward a lot of things that, before, she thought were frivolous and pointless.

She moves to the closet and reaches for another preference that developed shortly after her release: silky lingerie. It's almost an addiction. She'll never wear coarse cotton again, unless it's her military uniform.

Maybe it's a way of reclaiming her broken and pieced-together body. Maybe it's because of the scars. She doesn't care about the underlying psychological motivation. She just knows it feels good against her skin, and she fucking deserves some nice things after all the hell she's gone through.

She searches the hangers until she finds a pale pink pajama set, simple shorts and a tank top. That could be enough, but she reaches for a pair of white lace underwear and a short, silk robe, as well, and takes everything to the bathroom to check whether her bath is ready or not.

Erna has the only bathtub onsite. Plumbing is mostly nonexistent in the training camp she inherited. The barracks have group showers in each building, with water that's collected in cisterns on the roofs and heated by the sun, which means winter is fucking rough…and dirty. She's trying to extort enough money or find out the right piece of blackmail she needs to get a very expensive bathhouse for the camp so she won't have to look at so many dirty little brats whenever the weather gets cold.

Her own tub sits above the floor, raised over a brazier that she can load with hot coals for heat. It's inexact and it's work, but, once a week or so, it's worth it to her.

She sets her clothes down on a table next to the wash basin and strips off her uniform, carelessly letting the military issue garments pool on the wooden floor. She tests the water—not hot enough for her. She could stoke the coals, but that means waiting possibly up to half an hour. Instead, she takes a small pair of tongs hanging on a nail near the brazier and picks up a red-hot coal. She drops it directly into the water with a hiss.

Through her impatience, she's found that coal actually makes a very good exfoliant. Her skin has gotten softer and smoother in the years she has taken charge of the southern district training camp. Not that anyone gets the opportunity to notice but her.

She likes it this way. She likes being alone. She never masturbated before. Any ability to associate pleasure with sex was ripped away from her at a young age, and, even before puberty, her body became only an object to her. When she used it, she felt detached from what was happening, especially with men. Women could sometimes pull her into the moment, but only if they were good enough at what they were doing to make her mind go blank.

In a way, by torturing the shit out of it, Nile cleansed it with fire and gave her back a feeling of possession of her body that she hadn't felt in decades. She could finally look at it and see something that appealed to her. She liked her curves, her lines, the slight shadows and indentations of lean muscles over a delicate frame of bones. She fetishizes herself, a probable reason for the obsession with pretty lingerie, and objectifies her body for herself in a full length mirror.

Steam from the bath makes her skin blush a dusky red and undoes her hair from the straightened bob she sets it into every morning, making it return halfway to its natural curl, but it isn't the cause of the heat that pools in her abdomen when her fingers reach for the silky folds between her legs. Her eyes close, and she rocks against them, moaning for no one but herself.

She only teases herself. She doesn't want to make herself come until she can watch herself in the mirror, and she needs to get clean first.

She has a thing for soap and oils and toiletries that she never cared about before. Maybe because they would only have made her more appealing to other people, and she didn't give a fuck about others. Now that she gets off on her own skin, she enjoys actually taking good care of it with expensive soaps that the merchants who have been blackmailed into accepting meager military contracts have learned make her easy to negotiate with. Sometimes, they send bars of soap and shampoo along with the shipment of whatever she's ordered for the camp. Sometimes, if they need to beg, they send it to her personally in discreet, brown paper packages. If they're especially desperate, they send whiskey and cigarettes.

Higher ranking officers in the Military Police are the most devoted in sending tributes, lately, since she made some offhand remarks about how easily she could rank the trainees so that only the worst placed into the top ten, or she could rank them fairly but use her sway over them to convince the top ten that they would be better off joining the Wall Garrison. That way, the Military Police wouldn't even get recruits from her camp at all. It was all hypothetical, of course, but it still moved a few officials to keep her so well-stocked with the things she liked that she might need to start sharing her whiskey just to make room for more.

She smirks to herself as she gets out of the bath and dries herself with a towel. _Sharing._ That would be the day. Instead, she's settled for decorating her cabin with the pretty bottles, at least one in every room. Easy to take a nip whenever she feels moved to.

After rubbing rose-scented oil on her pulse points and getting dressed, she pours a generous portion of the amber-colored poison from a decanter on her vanity into a small glass. A small sip makes her cheeks start to glow. She sets the heavy-bottomed glass down and opens a drawer on the vanity. Her fingers rifle past a hairbrush and find the smooth object she wants. It's another gift, though from someone who knows her much more intimately—a thick, clear glass facsimile of a six inch cock. She'd laughed when Nanaba gave it to her as a parting gift "to remember her by." She'd asked how a glass cock was going to help her remember her. Then, Nanaba showed her exactly how.

She morbidly wonders every time she picks it up if Nanaba is dead yet. She should ask Erwin when he comes to fetch the brats. She doesn't know why she still gets a sick satisfaction out of her lovers dying, even when it isn't by her own hands.

She drags the short vanity chair over to the full length mirror, setting the piece of smooth glass on the edge of the tub close by and retrieving her drink. She takes another, longer sip, and, as she caresses her skin, she feels the whiskey warm her blood and go straight to her clit. Her hand stays above the silk shorts and rubs against the fabric covering her skin, which feels so much nicer than skin on skin contact.

As her face heats up, she leaves the chair, instead kneeling on the floor so that she can get a better view of the way her spine arches and creates a beautiful line for her eyes to follow to her cute, round ass. She takes one more small sip of whiskey before setting down the glass and grabbing her own flesh more aggressively. Her fingers stray into her panties, pushing at the waist of her shorts and disappearing. Her other hand slides up the curve of her small waist to grope at her breasts and pinch lightly at her nipples, until they poke slightly at the tight, silk tank top. The robe, with its pattern of pink lotus flowers over an ivory background and black trim, falls off of her shoulders with a soft whisper on its way to the floor. When her lips part unconsciously to let out barely audible huffs of air as she pants for breath, she finally pushes the shorts and lace panties down her thighs and reaches for the smooth, glass cock on the edge of the tub. Just as the head is prodding at her opening, there's a knock at the front door.

She closes her eyes at first and tries to ignore it.

In the pause between knocks she keeps running the smooth head over her wet hole. On the second knock, her eyes fly open and she stands up, hissing to herself, "Motherfucker."

She pulls her panties and shorts back up as the poor, misguided idiot outside keeps knocking. The robe gets picked up and tied back around her waist again, though not tightly enough to really cover her, because she's in a hurry to murder whoever has the fucking gall to try to disturb her this late at night. She sets her toy carefully on the vanity and picks her glass of whiskey up, bringing it with her and taking another hasty sip as she yells on her way to the answer the door, "Somebody better be dead and already in the ground!"

She rips the door open, expecting to see an officer. Instead, she is shocked to see Levi, whom she'd almost forgotten about over the past few days. She wants to ask him what the fuck he's doing out after curfew, but even before he pushes his way in the door, she can see the flash of hate in his eyes, the familiar look of a man who wants to kill her. Her pulse quickens while he swiftly closes the door behind him without letting her out of his sight, and, just as quickly, with no words, she breaks the glass in her hand against the small table by the door, gripping tightly the largest shard that stays heavy enough in her hand to not join the rain of glass falling to the floor. She slashes the air in an arc toward his throat.

Levi is surprised by her speed. He's able to take a step back only just in time to avoid getting his neck sliced open by a small fraction of an inch.

He can't help but be impressed by her quick thinking and reflexes. He would have expected her to be paralyzed in fear, or to panic and do something stupid. He had been expecting that. Most people didn't even have the intuitive sense to know when their life was being threatened until it was too late. Even if they did realize the need to defend themselves, they usually put too much effort into it in a panic and quickly wore out the energy needed to fight off their attacker. Erna looks almost calm in front of him, securely out of reach, waiting for him to make a move rather than taking another lunge at him.

He waits patiently, too, because he knows he's not the one in danger here.

This hadn't been his plan. His plan was to push her inside and kill her quickly, preferably with his hands. He'd fantasized for days about squeezing her throat until the life died out of her terror-stricken eyes, but, in that fantasy, she was wearing her uniform, not a very revealing set of light pink, silk lingerie, barely covered by a robe that accentuated the curve of her thighs. When he imagined killing her, he didn't picture her the way she is now, with flushed skin, her hair in messy curls, and lips wet with whiskey. The look alone would have started to make him change his mind. What clinched it was the way she fought him.

He's still faster than her. Her reflexes aren't good enough to change her stance or get out of the way before he sweeps her legs out from under her and makes her fall to the floor. Once she's flat on her back, he straddles her, dodging another slash from the piece of glass she hasn't dropped even though it cut her hand from the beginning, spilling more of her own blood than his.

Levi catches her wrist and pinches it between his fingers until the pressure cuts off the nerves, making it impossible for her to close her fist around the improvised weapon. She cries with impotent rage as her fingers go limp and the piece of glass falls to the floor. She tries to scratch at his eyes with her other hand, but he grapples with her and pins both wrists to the floor.

With her defenses finally disabled, he takes the time to stare at her neck, so temptingly vulnerable. An uncharacteristically violent idea flashes behind his eyes of how it would feel to rip at it with his teeth like an animal while holding her down and fucking into her. Before his humanity slips completely away from him, she interrupts the thoughts that she draws out of the darkest part of his mind and says, "If you're going to kill me, at least have the decency to do it quickly."

"I did come here to kill you," he growls, "but maybe I changed my mind."

"Yeah?" she answers back with cool bitterness. She can read him all too well. "You think you're going to rape me instead?"

He hadn't thought of it that way. "Is that what you think?" he asks.

She tells him with an aloof drawl, "I think if you wanted to see me cry, then you're going to be very disappointed."

"No," he muses, though tears would be nice. He feels a slight attempt at movement from her and pushes her wrists harder into the wood floor. "I think you want it." He leans into her harder to better hold her down, but also to nose at a warm spot behind her ear that smells intoxicatingly like roses and tell her in a gravelly, low voice, "I think you've been starving for it."

He can hear her swallow, but, otherwise, she stubbornly gives him no physical indication that he's right. He raises himself upright again and says frankly, "I think that's why you've been pushing me."

She scoffs at him and narrows her eyes. "Men are so fucking simple. I push you because I'm _bored_. You were supposed to be interesting, and I've been sorely disappointed. Even this is fucking predictable."

"If it's so predictable, you could have stopped me."

"Maybe I'm suicidal," she counters with an obstinance that most suicidal people wouldn't have. "Maybe I wanted to die."

"Yeah?" he asks, intrigued by the morbidity of her conjecture. "Let's see."

He leans into her and brings her wrists together above her head, easily holding them in one hand and crushing them to the floor as he pushes his hips into hers. Already, he can feel her breathing get faster and more shallow as the claustrophobic panic of being trapped and helpless makes her heart race. He revels in the satisfaction he feels at showing her how weak she is, but it isn't enough. He wants her to feel how much stronger he is. He needs to make her struggle.

He picks up the nearby shard of broken glass and brings it to the curve of her fragile, delicate neck, right to where her pulse is pumping the hardest. She can barely stop her body from reacting. He feels her muscles tense and coil underneath him, but her eyes still stare at him defiantly, daring him to do it.

She doesn't believe him, he thinks. That's a mistake. He actually hasn't decided yet whether or not he'll kill her. His decision is going to depend on her reaction. If she isn't willing to fight for her life, then he'll gladly take it from her. People who won't even fight aren't worthy of living. Besides, if she's so willing to let him kill her, then what fun would fucking her be anyway? And if she isn't going to be a good lay, then he doesn't really have any use for her, obviously.

He tells her, "Don't worry. I'll make it fast," like it's the kindest favor he's ever done someone, and when he draws blood, finally she believes him, and her eyes go wide. Her legs suddenly kick furiously underneath him, and she tries to twist away from the glass cutting into her. As she struggles against him, her pulse races, only making her lose blood through the tiny cut faster.

Levi can't help but smile. If he still wanted to kill her, it would be so easy. He lets her fight a few seconds longer and squeezes her delicate wrists that fit in his one hand tighter, bruising them to emphasize how helpless she is.

He puts the weapon down on the floor, not far in case he needs it again. "See?" he gloats as she realizes what he's done and starts to calm down. "You don't want to die. You just want a fight. Like any feral, caged animal."

He drinks in all of the defiance returning to her eyes as the panic fades away. She hates him now. He's humiliated her and exposed all of her weakness, but hasn't shattered her pride. He can't touch that. He smiles slightly while he decides that he likes that about her. She won't break easy.

Carefully, he lifts his hips and moves his leg, placing his right knee between her thighs and roughly pushing them apart. She makes a small noise of protest until he leans down and looms over her. Her fussing is cut short, sounds of objection dying in her throat as he brings his mouth close to her ear and promises, "I can give you the fight you've been wanting… Erna."

That spurs the violent reaction he was hoping for, her arms straining to break free as her back arches off the floor, and she makes an animalistic sound that gives way to hissing and spitting like an indignant cat. "You fucker!"

He ignores her threats to cut the tongue out of his mouth and calmly traces it down the side of her neck that's free of blood as she bucks and writhes under him. With the hand that isn't busy caging her wrists, he holds her waist and squeezes before pushing the layers of silk out of the way and sliding his fingers under her tank top to feel how smooth her skin is. Then, it slides down and cups that round ass he's watched sway self-assuredly away from him so many times after all the nonsensical punishments and humiliation she's inflicted on him. He gives her a rough squeeze and lifts her hips, pressing her against his thigh. He can feel her heat through both her thin, silk shorts and the white fabric covering his leg. A low growl reverberates through his throat, before he harnesses some patience and settles for biting at her clavicle and actually feeling her collarbone in his teeth. A predatory lust to kill courses through his veins, and he bites down harder until she lets out a moan that gives way to an alarmed scream. He lets go and sits up to get a look at the deep, red tooth marks. He has to tell himself that he's going to feel that heat that's against his leg around his cock soon, but he really needs to do something about that cut on her neck, or he is literally going to fuck the life out of her.

He looks down at her and takes in the way her eyelids have gotten heavy. Her lips are slightly parted, and her breathing shallow. He would wonder if that's all from blood loss if not for the way her thighs are clenching to rut needily against his leg. Funny how the symptoms of slowly dying and wanting to get fucked are so similar.

"You have a first aid kit?"

She nods and chokes out, "Under the bed."

"I'm going to let you go," he explains. "I think you're smart enough to not move."

Just in case she isn't smart enough, he adds, "If you try to get up, you're going to pass out." He can be certain of that based on the pint of crimson staining the floor under the crook of her neck. "And that's not going to stop me from taking you," he warns darkly as he lets go of her wrists and stands.

Before he bends down to check for the first aid kit, a bottle of whiskey on the bedside table catches his eye. He reaches for that first, while listening closely—especially for the sound of a large piece of glass being picked up off the wood floor—as he bends over and reaches under the bed for the small, metal box.

When he comes back to her, he stands over her prone body for a moment, silently bragging and stressing their difference in position. She squints hatefully up at him as she keeps firm pressure on her open vein with one hand.

He sets the first aid kit down next to her, but holds onto the whiskey bottle. Then, just to really rub it in as he steps over her and straddles her again, he says, "Good girl."

"Fuck you," she spits back.

He knows that's just bravado. He saw how much she liked it when he broke her nose only a little over a week ago. He didn't know if it was the pain or the violence or both, but he could see in her eyes that she got a charge out of it, which hadn't been his intention, but it was still useful information.

He roughly removes her hand from the cut he gifted her, and, before she can complain, he tips the neck of the bottle and pours whiskey over the clean slice in her flesh.

She kicks and screams and calls him some very creative things. He calmly smirks at her and concentrates on the way her chest heaves with her deep breaths. His eyes travel down to take in the barely-visible rise in her tank top where her nipples are pressing against the silk. He doesn't doubt how much the liquid burns, but it's better than an infected cut, he thinks.

"Tch. Don't be so dramatic."

He takes a long drink straight from the bottle as he waits for the alcohol to evaporate off of her skin. Judging by how it burns his throat, it's a high enough proof that he won't need to be waiting long.

She holds still for him while he staunches the blood flow with some wound powder made to get blood to coagulate faster and then tapes a piece of gauze over it. He ties some around the palm of her cut hand as well, even though it's barely bleeding anymore, but he doesn't want her smearing blood all over him when she's clutching at his shoulders and begging for his cock.

Suddenly, just as soon as he's finished patching her up, she pushes herself to sit up with one hand splayed against the floor underneath her, and Levi readies himself to put her back down and teach her again how much stronger he is than her. She snatches the bottle from his hand, and he thinks she's going to try to smash it over his head. His arm coils to grapple with her again, but, contrary to his prediction, she brings the mouth of the bottle to her lips and takes two long, greedy, desperate gulps.

He smirks as he watches her throat bob and asks, "Did I interrupt your nightcap?"

Instead of glaring at him again, her eyes soften, darkening under her long eyelashes and taking on a liquid look. Slowly, carefully, she reaches for his belt, slipping her fingers under it gingerly as she purrs in a smooth, whiskey-soaked voice that almost lulls him out of his guarded alertness, "Thank you for patching me up."

She shifts her hips, and he leans back slightly to allow her to sit up more. He stares, entranced, as she wets her lips on the bottle again. Before he can lean in and lick the excess moisture off her lips, she stops him by sliding her hand down from his belt and palming at the bulge in his pants, rubbing with subdued urgency at the fabric. He keeps watching her mouth as her tongue slowly licks away any whiskey left behind on her lips, and she rubs a little harder, searching and curious until she feels him and squeezes gently around the outline of his cock. A primal moan rumbles in his chest, and he covers her hand with his own, pressing it harder and wrapping her fingers to grip his length through the cover of white fabric.

Her tongue darts out to lick at those pink, glossy lips again, but not to lick up excess whiskey this time. She watches hungrily at the way his cock strains against the confining pants, and then she looks up, searching his eyes as if to ask if she has permission to touch him freely.

He lets go of her hand and lets his own fall to his side, giving her room to play how she wants. His eyes get lazy as he rubs against her hand and watches her take one more sip from the bottle before setting it gently down and out of the way. His eyelids close when her fingers brush over him teasingly again, before grasping at the end of his belt and pulling at the buckle.

He never should have trusted the sudden change in her demeanor. He should have been more suspicious when she thanked him for bandaging cuts that he caused himself. He let lust dull his wariness. He never saw or heard her swallow that last sip of whiskey.

He doesn't see her raise her other hand, though when it swipes at him he feels the sharp stinging of her black claws across his face. As soon as his eyes open, she spits at him, and a fine mist of alcohol burns his eyes as well as the fresh scratches. Before he can grab at her, she's already on her feet and behind him with his own belt around his neck so tight that it's impossible to breathe. He feels her foot press against the space between his shoulders for more leverage, pulling the belt so his fingers would need to rip through the skin of his own throat to get under it and release the pressure. His tongue bulges with blood, and his mouth opens noiselessly.

"It's cute how you think this is the first time I've been hurt and helpless underneath someone much stronger than me," she purrs.

When he tries to move, she pulls tighter, and his eyes bulge with a sickening wave of dizziness.

"Now," she says, her voice straining audibly with the effort of keeping him still, "I'm not going to kill you—though I could—because I like you." She jerks on the belt again to discourage him from reaching for it. "This is the most fun I've had in a very long time," she confesses evenly as he loses the strength to struggle. His lungs ache with fire and his vision starts to go grey around the edges. "SoI'm going to let you go, you're going to catch your breath," she pauses and then finishes disdainfully, "and then you're going to stop treating me like I'm made of fucking porcelain. I was more turned on when you were going to cut my throat open."

When the belt finally loosens and falls, he gasps, and his lungs suck down air with heaving breaths. While he's still weak, her fingers push against his hair and rake over his scalp patronizingly, like he's her good pet, and he sees red. His hand flies back for her wrist and crushes it in a violent grip. He twists her around, bringing her to her knees, facing him. His other hand goes for her throat, and he holds her still until he has enough air in his lungs to stand without blacking out, at which point he lifts her with him. The muscles in his arm barely strain to pick her small frame up by her neck until her toes are hovering inches above the floor, weakly kicking at him as she struggles to breathe.

Levi throws Erna onto the bed so hard that she bounces against the mattress, and in that one bounce he flips her over and lifts her hips, quickly hooking his fingers into the waist of her shorts and pulling them down. He smirks at the white, lacy underwear as she tries to get up and turn around. It's cute. He hopes she has more of it as he easily rips it down the seam and discards it to expose that smooth, round ass he noticed even on his first day of training. He reaches over her and pushes her shoulders down, flattening her face and chest to the bed and keeping them there as his other arm lifts her hips a little higher.

He takes his time, as if she isn't fighting him to try and get free. It's easy to hold her down as he runs his hand over her ass and then lower, searching between her thighs and finding her wet and hot. His fingers push and rub around the outside of her lips so her curses turn into resentful moans bitten back and always half-finished, because she hates that she loves what he's doing to her. He coats his fingers in her wetness without even pushing them inside her, and he smears them on her ass, before moving the hand between her shoulders into her hair, tangling his fingers in it and twisting her head to face him with her cheek pressed against the bed. The wet fingers of his other hand roughly push into her mouth and force her to taste herself.

He smiles condescendingly at her as he feels her soft tongue lap at her own wetness. Then, the little bitch bites him—should have seen that coming. He retracts his fingers and gives her a quick slap against her face and moves behind her again. He grunts as he digs his fingers into the soft flesh of her ass and slaps it much harder than he did her face, feeling his cock jump when he watches it shake. He bites her back, right where he smeared his fingers on her, and then swipes over the mark with his tongue. She flinches and squirms, but she can't do much with his fingers roughly digging into her thighs and holding her hips up for him. He spreads her legs forcefully when she tries to close them, and he palms at her shaved mound, spreading her lips with his fingers, playing with them as he sucks a bruise on her ass. She calls him a fucking prick even as she pushes against his hand, seeking more pressure, like her mouth isn't even aware of how badly her cunt wants it.

He stretches up to stand with one hard, parting smack of his hand to the wet bruise now marking her. As soon as he releases his hold on her, she moves to get up, to what end he doesn't know, but he quickly grabs her by the hair and throws her back against the wall that her bed is pushed up against. He growls at her, "Don't fucking move."

She obeys, though she glares at him hatefully, drawing her knees up and clamping her thighs tightly shut. Satisfied, he leaves her be for a second, just to look at her. He drinks in the feral way her nostrils flare and how her chest rises and falls with deep breaths. Her hair is mussed from being pulled at, and a strap of her tank top is hanging loosely off her shoulder. The flimsy robe fell somewhere in the struggle on the floor. Her shorts still sit loosely around her ankles. His cock hardens at seeing how he's wrecked her.

He finally tears his eyes away and grabs her pillow, tossing it to the floor and finding exactly what he was hoping for: a small knife. He'd be disappointed if she weren't at least that smart. He tests the edge against a callused finger and finds it razor sharp. He praises her admiringly, "Good girl."

This time she resists the urge to tell him to fuck himself, though he can still see a flash of defiance in her eyes.

He holds the blade in his teeth for a moment as he strips off his clothes, not stupid enough to let his guard down again and set it where she could reach. He takes his time. To rush would make it seem like he didn't think he had her under control, but he's secure in the feeling that he has her adequately subjugated because of the way she looks at him with hunger. He stares at her as he peels off each article of clothing, and only after he's folded each one and set them on the bedside table neatly does he take the knife from his teeth, gripping it tightly in his hand again to join her on the bed.

She doesn't move while he makes himself comfortable, but she tracks him with a fire in her eyes. He sits up against the headboard and then suddenly, violently reaches and takes her by the hair again, pulling her over to him and positioning her between his legs. He tells her, "Now you're going to suck me off. " He pauses to make sure his next warning sinks in. "And if you bite me again," he holds up the knife, "I have no problem fucking you with this."

As she watches wide-eyed, he trails the blade gently down her neck. She closes her eyes and bites her lip as he comes close to nicking her collarbone with it. His hand reaches for one of her breasts and kneads at it through her top, finally eliciting a moan that she doesn't stifle and bite back. From the way her eyes close in ecstasy when the knife travels back up her neck and caresses her cheek, he almost thinks she likes it better than his hands. For that, he takes it away just before slapping hard at the curve of her tit and making her cry out and flinch from him. Before she can even finish her cry of outrage, he's fisting her hair again and pushing her face down as he tells her coldly, "Get to work."

He sighs quietly when she flattens her tongue against his cock and laves over the length of it. She licks another stripe up the side, but it only makes him impatient. He isn't here for foreplay. He lets go of her hair, holds the knife behind her ear, and growls, "Stop wasting my time and put it in your mouth before I start cutting shit off." The cold blade presses against the skin behind the appendage to show her how serious he is. Without further delay, he's enveloped in the warm, wet heat of her mouth, and, automatically, his hand goes back to her hair, desperate to not let her escape or come up for air and deprive him of how good it feels. His eyelids flutter closed, and he groans as she sucks him down to the base, her tongue curling and licking as she bobs her mouth up and down like a starving whore.

He lifts his hips and pushes up until her nose is pressed against his pubic bone, expecting her to cough and choke, but, instead of spasming and trying to push him out, her throat relaxes and becomes more pliant against the abuse. She moans with his cock deep in her warm throat and pushes down harder, rubbing her nose against his trimmed patch of black hair. Her tongue darts out to lick at his balls, her throat tightening around the head of his cock as she strains to reach with her wet tongue.

"Oh, fuck," he moans, marvelling at her technique, though trying not to sound too surprised or impressed. He hums and tightens his grip on her disheveled curls, beginning to thrust in a shallow, easy rhythm. "Little slut likes choking on cock," he notes, cruelly pushing in so that she can't breathe and holding her down until her throat spasms and he feels her gagging. He still holds her down, just because he can, and because the panicked constriction of her throat feels so good around his thick cock. He ignores the pain when her nails dig and scratch at his thighs, and he smiles callously at her as she looks up at him with wild eyes, glaring at him through an involuntary veil of tears. She can hate him all he wants. She's going to have to fight harder than that for air.

He makes sure every inch of his cock stays buried in her while she starts to struggle harder. Her muffled howls of exasperation and fury only make him harder as her entire body starts to spasm with reflexive coughing and gagging. Her black nails draw lines of blood on his thighs, but he doesn't care.

He smirks and only decides to let her up when the fight starts to die out of her and her eyelids flutter over irises that are slowly starting to roll back. Her head lolls as he lifts her by the hair, and she falls bonelessly onto her side when he lets go. She lies there next to him with glazed-over eyes, gulping down air hungrily, the way he was a few minutes ago when she almost choked the life out of him. Turnabout is fair play. That's why he moves behind her and flips her onto her stomach while she's helpless, and it's why he hooks an arm under her waist to lift her hips up to the level of his achingly stiff cock shining with her saliva. Without waiting for her to get her breath back, he pushes into her shockingly tight cunt hard and fast, fucking her from behind like an animal, digging his fingers into the soft flesh of her ass, his thighs staining her skin with the blood she drew fighting him for her life and failing. He wants to make her feel more worthless and more degraded with every thrust for all of the hell she's put him through in the past six weeks.

There's barely enough breath in her to sigh and whimper with as he tears into her, treating her like a weak little rag doll, watching her ass jiggle with every vicious thrust of his hips. Her body sags, still weak from choking, and he has to lift her falling hips with a grunt and pull them forcibly to him. For all of her loose limbs, her cunt still feels like a tight fist around him trying to push him out.

It's important to him that she gets her strength back before he finishes, because he wants to break her more than this. Pressure starts to build under his abdomen, and he has to stop moving altogether to keep himself from teetering over the edge and coming before he can properly ruin her. He closes his eyes and tilts his head back, trying to make his mind a blank, but the animal inside him tells him to look down at that delicious ass and stare in awe at the way his cock is stretching her pretty little cunt. Foolishly, he makes an experimental push forward, rocking his hips into her, seeing if the building pressure in him has faded away enough to keep going, but, immediately, he feels himself on the brink again and pulls out until there's only a couple inches unsatisfyingly buried inside her. He holds still and mutters under his breath, mostly to himself, "Fuck… You're so tight."

It's been a long time for him. He's astonished that he's even lasted this long, especially with how good it feels and how deep the need was in him. He wonders how long it's been for her until she, unfortunately for him, recovers enough strength to push back against him and whine lazily, "Harder."

He hisses and quickly digs his fingers into her to hold her still. She struggles uselessly to move her hips and fuck herself on his cock for a moment, but when it becomes clear that he isn't going to give in and let her move, she instead quickly hooks her legs behind him and pulls him into her with her heels against the backs of his thighs until he's buried in her tight heat again. The overwhelming feeling of having his cock suddenly gripped tight inside her silky walls makes him lose control for a second and his grip on her slackens while a shaky moan escapes his throat. The little bitch grinds against him and complains, "Give it to me."

The temptation to give in is killing him while he uses every ounce of willpower to fight the raw want coursing through his veins. He's able to push her away after an internal struggle and growl out, "Hold the fuck still."

She does not hold still. Instead, her pussy clenches around him, and she tries to undulate her hips and fuck herself on him, so, even though it's the last thing he wants to do, he pulls out.

Her hips stutter unevenly at the sudden empty feeling. She throws a little tantrum and snaps impatiently, "Give me your fucking cock."

Levi growls as he grabs at her and flips her onto her back, one hand pushing her shoulder straight down, as if to bury her into the mattress. "You're going to have to ask much more nicely than that," he sneers.

Erna's keen eyes drill into him, and she smirks like she finds something about all of this funny before saying, "I'm not in the habit of begging," and reminding him, "but you've been very good at following orders until now, _Snowflake_."

She opens her legs and tries to trap him between them again, but her action is cut short when he suddenly slaps her across the face, making her head snap to the side. She turns to face him as soon as the shock of the unexpected blow fades, her lips curling up at the edges, her eyes black with thirst for more. His fingers wrap around her throat, and he growls at her. "Say my name before I crush your windpipe."

WIth a demure sarcasm she declines, "I'm not even sure I remember it after all this time, Snowflake."

Through gritted teeth, he warns her, "You better remember it fucking quick." He presses down on her throat. "And start begging."

WIthout breaking her eyes away from challenging his glare, her hand suddenly reaches for the knife he'd discarded at the side of the bed when he'd started fucking her. He silently curses himself again for letting his guard drop and getting too confident.

Lev has never been in a fight that lasted more than a few seconds. He's never even needed to be on the defensive side of things until his encounter with Smith, and that was more for show. He was trying to get caught without making it look like he was trying to get caught, so this is the only time he's had a decent back and forth, he thinks, as he dodges the razor-sharp blade aimed at the map of veins under the smooth skin of the inside of his forearm. She takes the opportunity of his necessitated change in balance to buck him off of her and sit up, slashing toward either his ribs or his heart. She doesn't get close enough for him to find out which. She gets her knees under her and lunges at him. Time slows down as he keeps dodging and defending and trying to get the knife away from her, and, the whole time, she doesn't scream, doesn't flail. She measures her movements and regards him coldly and calmly, trying again and again for an opening until finally he catches her wrist and twists it just shy of snapping a bone before she finally drops the knife.

He picks it up. He _should_ kill her. Killing her would be the sensible thing to do.

Instead, he grips her shoulder and throws her back down to the bed. Rather than bleed her out, he uses the knife to slice her top in half before throwing it far behind him to clatter onto the floor near the front door. He lines his cock up with her wet folds and murmurs, "Keep fucking fighting me."

He drives himself into her harder than before and fucks her at a relentless pace while she digs her nails into his chest. The slapping of his hips against her is almost drowned out by her moans. She pulls him down by his shoulders and bites his neck harshly. Without breaking his brutal pace, he grabs her hair and pulls her head back, freeing his neck from her teeth and baring her throat. She claws at his back instead, making stinging red lines over his skin.

He tugs hard at her hair and tells her in between her moans, "Say it."

"Hah, fuck! Levi!"

His teeth flash in a feral grin. He slaps his hips against hers especially hard and makes her yelp in shock, only to hook an arm under one of her knees and lift her leg up, trying to get more access, get her legs out of the way, get deeper inside her.

She babbles as he keeps thrusting into her deep and hard, her growing wetness doing nothing to lessen the friction. She says his name again and again until her thighs are shaking. He grunts and groans as his cock rams into her, and her walls convulse and contract around him. He hadn't even thought about making her come. He wouldn't have cared less if she didn't have an orgasm at all, but feeling it, watching her come undone underneath him while screaming his name, just from getting fucked by his cock, makes him tip over the edge as he impales her, spilling his cum inside her, desecrating her with it.

He curls over her and rests his forehead against hers while he struggles to catch his breath. She sounds just as breathless as she says to herself in disbelief, "Holy fuck…"

He agrees. He pushes himself up to sit next to her, not feeling like the kind of sex they just had really calls for cuddling. He simply asks her, "Can I use your shower?"

"Please," she sighs gratefully before draping her arm over her eyes and murmuring, "Fucking earned it."

As he walks towards what he assumes is the bathroom, she calls after him, "Can you grab me a towel?"

When he comes back with a hand towel from the bathroom, she takes it and sits up. She looks down at her thighs and makes a disgusted face. She murmurs, "Cum is so gross," and wrinkles her cute little nose as she wipes away anything that's leaked down her legs.

It's disorienting to see her being…cute. Like she's human, or something. Levi looks pointedly down at her thighs and asks, "Is that going to be a problem?"

"What?" she asks. "Coming inside me?" She tosses the towel carelessly onto the floor and lies back down. "Nah."

Her fingers lightly trace over a raised, jagged line of white and light lavender over her lower abdomen that he didn't notice before, and she says, "Hysterectomy scar…"

He looks closer. The scar looks brutal, like her surgery was in a back alley, not a hospital.

On his way back to the bathroom, he pauses and looks over toward where he threw her knife. He finds it on the floor and thinks about grabbing it. She sees him and can read what he's thinking even with one sleepy eye open. She tells him, "Easy. I'm not going to try to kill you again."

He hears the lazy contentment in her voice as she says quietly, "You feel too fucking good." She pulls the sheet over her hips and murmurs, "Never came with a man's cock inside me before."

That might make his chest puff out a bit as he leaves the knife and goes to take a shower. Once he's finished using up all the warm water and helping himself to her soap, he takes a look in the mirror and assesses the damage. Visible bite marks, bloody scratches, and a dark bruise all the way around his neck. Then, he looks down at the vanity and notices something odd. He picks up the small, glass dildo and smirks.

When he comes back out, Erna's just waking up from her fucked-out coma. She starts to sit up in bed when he waves the smooth piece of glass at her and says, "Really?"

"What?" she laughs, "It was a gift." She takes it from him with a playful pout.

She watches him as he takes his clothes from the bedside table and he says casually, "I want to watch you fuck yourself with that next time."

"Oh," she says brightly. "There's going to be a next time?"

"If you don't have me court martialed and executed."

She doesn't confirm or deny any plans for that. She only stretches out on the bed like a content cat, picking her pillow up off the floor and pressing her cheek against it as her eyes start to close again. He looks down at her as he gets dressed and starts noticing details he missed before in a frenzied haze of lust, like the white scars painted all over her back in messy, jagged lines. He reaches down tentatively and lightly runs his fingers over them. She flinches and turns away.

"How did those happen," he asks while he puts his shirt on.

At first, she doesn't say anything, and he thinks she isn't going to answer him. Then, she says bitterly, "Another gift."

Without a straight answer he can only imagine, and his mind goes straight to someone else hurting her in similar ways to what he just did. He'd hated her hours ago, but now that he sees her docile and vulnerable, adorable, even if she's probably a little mad. A territorial feeling of possession makes his blood boil at the idea of anyone else touching her in any way.

He pushes her hair away from her face and just looks at her, until she peeks an eye open to see what he's up to. "I have to go," he says, as if she didn't know. It's her own rules that make it so that he has to get his ass out of there and sneak back to his bunk. "You okay?"

She snorts back a little laugh. "Okay? I feel better than I've felt in a long time. You should be rougher next time." She turns over and away from him. "Fuck off so I can sleep."

He starts to move to do just that until she sits up suddenly, saying, "Shit! Wait." She gets out of bed and softly pads on bare feet over to him, avoiding broken glass.

The sight of her uncovered and naked body stirs his cock to life all over again, and he wraps his hands around her slim waist, ready to push her back into bed. Her eyes twinkle, and she slaps one of his hands away, scolding him teasingly, "I'm still sore, you fucking pig, so calm down. I think you sprained my cervix."

Her fingers card into his black hair and she tilts his head back, clucking her tongue at him. She wonders aloud, "How are you going to explain that bruise?"

He shrugs carelessly about the bruise from the belt on his neck that is only going to get darker before it fades and answers with some cheek, "Nobody would think it was strange if I told them you tried to choke me to death."

Her lips curl up skeptically to one side. She looks away and hums, biting at her lower lip as she thinks to herself. Then, suddenly, she goes over to her dresser. She opens a small upper drawer and digs around, seemingly searching for something in the bottom of the drawer. Finally, she takes out a simple, white strip of fabric. She tells him to hold still as she lifts the collar of his shirt and ties it carefully around his neck.

He tries to look down without moving. "What's that?"

"A cravat," she says simply as she finishes folding it over in the front and taking a half step back to make sure it covers the whole strip of bruising around his neck.

His eyebrows crease and knit together as he looks down at it and asks curiously, "Why do you have this?"

"I stole it from a nobleman in Sina," she says, leaving out the part about taking it off the man's body as a trophy after she fucked him and killed him.


	10. Dress

Knocking at her front door wakes Erna early in the morning, when, normally, she would have been up and dressed and straightening her hair already. She opens one eye and groans, fists the sheets in her fingers as she stretches, and slowly rolls her sore body out of bed.

The knocking outside pauses as she unhurriedly slides a pair of white panties up her legs in front of an elegantly carved, wooden-framed, full-length mirror and then stretches up on the balls of her feet to raise her arms above her head until her vertebrae pop. Still unrushed and not fully wakeful, she gets a white button-down shirt from the closet and stretches her shoulders and neck as she pulls it on before the knocking starts up again, quiet and hesitant at first, before the person on the other side of the door finds the courage to knock harder.

Erna's annoyance makes her scowl in the mirror. Dressed just enough—pants pulled on, shirt half buttoned, and feet bare—she tiptoes carefully over broken glass. A hand pushes through her messy bedhead of wavy black curls on her way to the bathroom so that she can wash her face, yelling toward the door on her way, "Leave it and fuck off," referring to her breakfast that the person on the other side is trying to deliver, the same as every morning.

She hears a confused, nervous, "Oh... Sorry..." from the other side. Then she pauses and changes course to rip the door open abruptly, terrifying the trainee sent from the kitchen and making him flinch and stumble backward, just as he was setting a covered plate outside the door. She glares at him at first, then rolls her eyes as he scurries to get his ass up from the dirt and stand and salute. Erna opens the door wider and gestures with a nod to the mess on the floor behind her, saying, "Go get someone to clean this up."

The trainee peers inside past her. His eyes are wide and his jaw slack. Erna adds, "Maybe get two or three people. I don't care. I want this cleaned up before I'm done brushing my teeth." She leaves the door open to let in some fresh air, turning away and taking a deep breath of it as the trainee hurriedly salutes again and stammers, "Y-yes, Sir…"

He trips as he runs off. Erna finally takes a moment to survey the damage, her torn clothes scattered on the floor, broken glass glittering in the sunlight filtering through the open door, a smattering of blood staining the floorboards. If she had more shame, she would clean up the whole mess herself, but, thankfully, that's not an emotion she has in her repertoire.

She feels bleary-eyed and drowsy until cold water shocks her awake. She gazes shrewdly at her reflection in the small mirror over the sink before her head tilts lazily to the side, and as she eyes the small piece of blood-soaked gauze taped to her neck, admiring it like a beautiful, crimson accessory, her eyes glaze over and her fingertips give a light touch to the edges of the white tape. Then her eyes burn and her lips twist and press into a thin, maniacal line as the tips of her fingers snatch at the tape and rip it from her skin. In a flash just as sudden, her face returns to a tranquil expression with eyes widened and calm. She centers a new square of gauze over the cut and scolds her reflection as if it's another person she's talking to. "You should have killed him."

It occurs to Erna often that she could commit murder somewhat easily, not that it's an obsession, but the ample opportunity of the large and isolated training camp makes it cross her mind more often than it otherwise should. The thing that stops her from pursuing the very satisfying feeling of snuffing the spark of life out of someone weak is her nagging pragmatism reining her in. The Military Police know her record and anything but a clear cut training accident with ample witnesses is going to have her ass transported back to an underground cell so fast her head would spin before they justifiably cut it off.

Fresh tape holds her gauze in place as a little circle of red blooms through its center. She rotates her neck and her eyes track to the side and back, travelling over her skin in the mirror, looking for bruises and scrapes. She pushes hair behind one ear and is distracted by a black bruise around her wrist. She looks down to the other one and its matching band of black.

She is mostly confident that the Military Police wouldn't care or notice if she killed any of the Underground trio that already belong to the Survey Corps. Erwin, of course, would care, which only makes her want to do it more.

Her lips open and let out an annoyed huff at her reflection because she didn't take her opportunity. There's a good possibility that she could have strangled Levi with that belt last night when she'd caught him off guard. Now she won't have another chance. He'll be too wary. She stands still and her heart sinks with disappointment.

She mutters, "Getting soft," to her reflection.

She doesn't like what her heart is doing when she thinks about him and being stuck with him alive, too hard to kill. She feels high and giddy when memories come unbidden of his crushing grip bruising fingerprints into her skin and the sting of his thighs hitting hers in an angry frenzy as he poured all his hatred into fucking her.

She has a crush. It started small, infinitesimal, only an ember, when he broke her nose. Now it's a roaring internal fire that makes her cheeks burn red.

She turns away from the mirror without bothering to do anything to cover up the cuts and bruises. Boots and gloves are pulled on and she dons her tan jacket with the crossed swords, then nearly trips over her breakfast on her way outside. Her lips twist into an angry grimace before she swiftly bends in half at the waist, snatches the cooling cup of tea up from the tray and swings her leg back to wind up and deliver a swift kick that sends the rest of it flying, flipping and making several little divots in the dusty ground.

She spins around and slams the door behind her, closing herself back in her one room cabin with her tea cup. Her shadow looms away from the rising sun shining through her window as she stalks back to her bedside table, simultaneously bringing the tea cup to her lips with one hand and picking up a nearly empty bottle of whiskey with the other. After a few hasty sips of tea, she tops the cup off with whiskey. She sips slowly and carefully as she makes her way to the training grounds.

….

Farlan, silver-tongued as he is, has never been able to persuade Levi in one direction or another. There were times where his friend, or business partner, whatever they actually were, would seem to be listening and considering suggestions or advice, but if he swayed in the direction Farlan was aiming for, he knew it was only because he'd already decided to long before the blond ever opened his mouth. Like a cat, he can't be encouraged to do anything unless it is already his idea. That's why, when he said that he was going to kill their head instructor with dead certainty, Farlan didn't say anything, even though he knew it was a catastrophic plan. He could only trust and hope that Levi would do it in such a way that wouldn't get them caught and sent back to the Underground… or worse… probably worse. He swallows, and his hand goes to his throat in a protective motion at the thought of other possible outcomes.

He's taut as a bowstring that night, anxious and stiff in his bunk. He tries to calm himself by listening to Isabel snoring peacefully, too naive to worry, too trusting that 'big bro' would never do anything to jeopardize their position.

For reasons he doesn't understand, he closes his eyes and holds his breath, feigning sleep when he hears Levi leave the top bunk. If he'd actually been sleeping, like the officers around them, he would have missed it completely, the quietest whisper of movement. Levi sneaks out into the night, unseen. Farlan opens his eyes and stares at the wood slats above him, waiting. He waits for hours, it feels like. Eventually, sheer nervousness puts him out and he sleeps until morning.

They wake up before sunrise. That's the routine. Normally, Levi would wake up even earlier than that to steal a shower before breakfast, and that's when Farlan thinks he's going to have time and privacy to ask him what happened, but Levi doesn't head for the showers. He sleeps in, gets out of bed when everyone else does, stretches, and gets dressed, like he's a normal person for once. Farlan watches him dully, exhausted from lack of sleep, but sharp and anxious enough to look at his friend closely for sloppy details like blood under fingernails, anything small that would give him up should a sudden murder investigation be underway. In the grey light of predawn he thinks he sees bruises.

He sits up as much as he can in his bunk, hunched over with his elbows on his knees, and he squints. Levi, as if he can feel him staring at the ring of dark bruising around his neck, reaches into his pocket, pulls out a white cravat, and covers it before putting his jacket on. When he turns to grab his boots, Farlan snaps out of his stupor and scrambles to get dressed and follow him and Isabel outside.

When he catches up, he walks close to Levi so that he can keep his voice low and ask, "So, did you…?"

"No."

That answer is unexpected and raises a lot more questions than the affirmative grunt Farlan had expected. He doesn't even know where to start.

"Is it… Are you…" he can't decide what he really wants to know first. He settles on, "Are we okay?"

"We're fine."

Farlan feels less than satisfied with the monosyllabic answers. If Levi didn't leave last night to do what he said he was going to, then what the hell was he doing? "What happened?"

"Oi, Isabel," Levi says, and the girl who had been dragging her feet still half asleep, perks up. "Run ahead and steal me some tea before all the good stuff is gone."

"Got it, big bro!"

When she's far enough away, Levi says, "I didn't kill her. Stop looking like you're about to shit yourself."

Farlan lets out an audible sigh of relief, then catches himself and nervously peers around to make sure no one heard. Still walking and looking straight ahead, he asks, "Then what happened? Where were you all night?"

"Out."

"Out doing what?"

"None of your business."

Farlan stops walking alongside him and calls out imploringly as his companion keeps walking, "Levi…"

He stops and rolls his neck, standing still for a second before turning around and closing the distance, getting close again so that they can continue the conversation in very hushed voices. Farlan tilts his chin down, searching Levi's smoldering eyes, and asks, concerned, "What happened?"

Levi's breath leaves him in a frustrated, inconvenienced sigh as he crosses his arms, but he looks apologetic about being so terse with his best (only) friend, so he answers, "I was _going_ to kill her."

"Okay?" Farlan says, a little confused as to why Levi sounds regretful about not following through on what was at best a reckless impulse in the first place.

"I got…" he pauses uncharacteristically, as if diplomatically trying to decide on what to say, "sidetracked."

"Sidetracked?" Farlan repeats, incredulous. He's never seen Levi falter from anything he was fixated on, big or small, and the absolute murder in his eyes when he'd said he was going to kill the head instructor hadn't suggested that it was something he would just put aside.

Levi groans quietly. His fingers entangle in his hair, pushing it away from his forehead, and he says, "I… stayed with her for a while. That's where I was."

Farlan's eyebrows knit and form a big wrinkle between them. He can't make any sense of those words. "That would mean…" he starts to say.

That would mean that Levi snuck out after curfew, went to Instructor Raban's cabin, and for some reason he didn't get literally hung for the transgression by the woman who has on many occasions threatened worse than death for lesser offenses such as looking at her the wrong way. Just as it's dawning on Farlan, Levi shrugs his shoulders and says, as if he's baffled by it himself, "I ended up fucking her instead."

Farlan thinks this is a misguided attempt at humor. He's about to ask again why Levi was out for so long last night, but a clear, cold voice cuts him short. It comes snaking in from their right and asks, bemused, "Is that right, Snowflake?"

Involuntarily, Farlan's heels click together and his spine stiffens. His hand curls over his heart in a quick salute before Instructor Raban even enters their eyeline with her wry smile and aura of malicious discord.

"Walls, Church," she mutters, rolling her eyes at his stiffness, though his heightened nerves seem to make her smile a little less tight and sardonic. She takes a sip from the delicate tea cup hooked on her gloved finger, points to Levi with her other hand, "You. Come with me."

Levi shrugs at Farlan as their Instructor walks away. He smirks and follows her. He doesn't bristle or radiate with even a little rage or hatred, and Farlan knows in that moment that he must not have been lying, though he feels like he's only gotten the barest fragment of the whole story. He stands, utterly bewildered for what seems like minutes, and watches them walk away, then he shakes himself off and walks off toward breakfast, doubting he'll be able to get himself to eat.

Just as Levi's catching up to her brisk walk, Erna says coldly, "Don't walk next to me. We're not equals."

So he stays a step behind her.

And briefly thinks about cutting her pretty throat.

"Here's the thing," she says in a short, decisive clip, "I don't give a fuck if you tell anyone."

He tilts his head and stops walking as she stops and turns to face him. "You don't," he says skeptically.

She quirks her lips. "Doesn't make a bit of difference to me. I don't think many people would even be scandalized by it. They probably assume I'm abusing my authority in that way already."

"So you're not about to do something fucked up to me..." he says with incredulous sarcasm.

She doesn't confirm or deny, only asks, "Are you coming over tonight?"

He smirks to himself. "Do you want me to?"

Erna's shoulders slump and she mumbles a quick, petulant, "Maybe."

Levi stops, and, after a couple of steps, she senses he isn't with her and turns around, sees him standing there defiantly. Her shoulders jerk with an impatient gesture and she does a restless eye roll as she exhales a short annoyed huff. He asks her again, slowly, "Do you want me to?"

"Yes," she says, short and agitated, crossing her arms to try and contain her impatience.

"Tell me."

She squeaks a tiny hum, and her lips quirk to the side. Levi watches the conflict play over her face, and then her eyes scan quickly left and right, and he knows that he has her as she checks that no one is near enough to hear her say after a prim little pout, "I want you to."

"Want me to what?" he asks.

The last of her authoritative bearing flakes away as she blinks long with her inky eyelashes and looks around again, only more carefully. She turns to check over her shoulder, and, when she faces him again, it's with a saccharine smile, her cheekbones suddenly highlighted with a glow. She steps into him and her hand coils around the back of his neck, soft calfskin gloves rasp upward against the grain of his undercut and she purrs. "I want you to fuck me tonight, tomorrow, every night, for however long I have before Smith finally comes back to retrieve you and your friends."

He tilts his head and her glove slides away and rests at her side while he makes her wait. He acts like he needs to think about it before saying simply, "Good."

She smiles, tilts her head back and forth, and chirps, "Perfect," then lifts her tea cup to her lips and takes a sip before walking off toward the area where new trainees are tested for 3D maneuvering capability. She tells him, "So here's the thing about that: if people are going to find out, which I'll assume they will since you told Church within," she reaches for her jacket pocket and he hears a click; she tilts her eyes down and checks her watch quickly, "four hours... " She closes it with another metallic click. "Then I need to maintain the appearance of impartiality. I can't let it seem like I'm favoring you."

"It," he says, thinking over the many truly fucked up things she's done to him in the past month, "is never going to seem like that."

She stops between four tall posts with a pulley system that attaches two cables to the belt of the harness to test for vertical maneuver aptitude. Levi hasn't been subjected to it since he was already proficient with the ODM gear before agreeing to join the Survey Corps, so he raises an eyebrow when Erna wordlessly motions for him to stand in place. She notices his hesitation and flashes him that dry, cynical smirk. She is chaos and impassioned madness covered over with frost.

He moves for her, confident that she's mellowed. He fucked her breathless. Some of the cruelty and madness she used to direct at him has to have been released through that outlet. So he stands where she wants him, feet apart, hands behind his back. She kneels in front of him to rest her delicate porcelain teacup and saucer on the ground with careful precision. He stares down at the clear, warm tea, and he licks his lips as she rises, and her hands caress up his thighs. Her fingertips dart and flit over his harness, intermittently slowing to a drag to play and press against his muscles before she sighs and attaches the ropes that simulate the steel cables of the maneuver gear at his waist. She leans in, and he can smell the tea and whiskey on her breath as it trails over his neck, and she whispers, "There's something about you that I really like," as if it's an intriguing but disquieting conclusion. She raises her voice as she walks away and speculates, "I think it's that you're not afraid of me, despite, you know, everything."

He tells her, "You're not very frightening," and returns his attention to the whiskey-spiked tea she left at his feet. He leans and reaches for it, and suddenly he's jerked up and off of his feet, the tea out of his reach as the cables lift him into the air.

"Maybe not to you," she sing-songs. She circles back around into his view, picking up her tea and holding it just below her lips. "Anyway," she sighs, "despite how enamoured I am with the way you try to fuck the actual life out of me, I am required to maintain at least an appearance of objectivity."

His eyelids feel heavier as he watches her lips part to let the liquid soak her tongue, and he considers her choice of words. He likes the sound of fucking the life out of her. To him, it means making her eyes lose that lightning storm of manic frenzy, calming them to the dull contentment he saw last night. But the way she says it, he thinks she might mean it much more literally.

"So," she begins after her long sip, "if we're going to keep doing this, I'm going to have to make life here much harder for you." She smirks. "You know, in the interest of fairness."

"Because you weren't doing that already," he quips, maintaining precarious balance midair, watching her impassively sip her tea as if this is simple polite conversation. "In the interest of fairness," he tells her, leaning forward and looking down at her as far as he's able without tipping himself over, "the more shit you give me, the more I'm going to take it out on you later."

A small smile hides behind her tea cup. She tilts her head slightly as she shrugs one shoulder and says, "Sounds lovely."

"Or I could decide to catch up on sleep in my own fucking bed," he reminds her, figuring that's a more effective threat.

Her pale pink lips pout while she looks up at him from under her lashes. Her brows crease slightly, and she says with the sullen sound of a spoiled child, "You're being very unfair," and he finds it irresistible even as his heartbeat quickens naturally with a heightened sense of insecurity. Her erratic, manic mood swings and the way her voice changes from cold pragmatism to cloying sweetness sometimes without warning makes him uneasy in a way nothing ever has. The fine hairs on the back of his neck stand up and an involuntary release of adrenaline makes him feel alert and aroused.

He looks at the rig she has him strapped into and asks, "Is this supposed to be hard?"

"Oh, no," she murmurs, clearly delighted that he asked. "It's relatively easy. Most new trainees get the hang of it in a day, some in just an hour."

"Then how does this factor into your promise to make training harder on me?"

"It doesn't. This is just to satisfy my curiosity."

"Curiosity?" he quirks a brow while looking over the ropes he's attached to.

"It's just that I've never seen anyone able to recover from a fall in this," she says with a little wonder and awe.

"What makes you think I'm going to—" She steps forward, wraps her hand around his ankle, and doesn't even have to give him more than a light shove to topple him ass over head. "Nngh," he groans after swaying upside down. He tucks his cravat into his collar to keep it out of his face and says, "Fuck you," through gritted teeth.

Erna taps her finger against her lips as if in thought. "If I remember my cursory medical training, you can stay like that for something like three minutes before your brain starts to suffocate from all the blood rushing to your head… Three minutes or seven… Somewhere in between there…"

He reaches downward, trying to get his palms against the ground for something to push against so he can attempt to right himself. "You fucking cunt."

"If you have a complaint, you can take it up with me later." She turns on her heel and starts walking away, adding over her shoulder, "If you don't die."

His curses at her trail off and get quieter as she heads back to her cabin, calmly sipping the last of her spiked tea. Her blood warms in her veins, and she feels very content and self-satisfied as she runs into an officer, either rushing somewhere or trying to look like they are rushing and very busy in order to avoid catching her attention. She stops them, calmly orders them to keep an eye on Levi and cut him out of his harness if he passes out, and mentions that she's making herself scarce for the rest of the day. The officer nods their understanding, and, before she fucks off, she stresses that she isn't to be bothered with anything short of utter catastrophe.

Utter catastrophe knocks at her door a few hours later, waking her up from a very peaceful nap.

She recognizes the voice of one of her favorite officers, if she played favorites, which she does, telling her from the other side of the door, "Mail delivery, Sir. Do you want me to leave it out here?"

"Fuck me," Erna whispers to herself. She twists and turns in her bed, tightening the sheet around her body and burying her face deep into the pillow, then unburying it to shout, "Slip it under the door," and closing her eyes again.

"There's a package…"

On the other side of the door, Officer Terra hears a high-pitched snarl and some curses. Erna opens the door, and the officer graces her with a weak, apologetic smile and a "Sorry, Instructor Raban."

It's attention to detail like that—the carefulness and forethought to never address her by the same title twice in a row—that made Erna decide to make this one her favorite, though it's only an arbitrary thing. She has very few feelings regarding any of her officers. Playing favorites is a way to keep them on their toes and part of the way she trains. Erna exhales a long-suffering sigh and takes the package with a stack of envelopes on top of it. "Don't worry, Terra, you're an angel."

That blush that colors her neck when she's praised doesn't hurt.

"Anything else?" Erna cocks her hip and raises a black eyebrow.

"Nothing, Sir."

"Perfect, doll. Now remember that I don't exist until tomorrow morning." The door swings shut, and she locks it again with the swift twist of a bolt before flipping through letters, ticking off each official military memo with, "Boring… Garbage... Tedious..." tossing them onto the bed to open some other time. Only one at the bottom of the stack grabs her attention. She holds up the envelope, stamped with a seal from Military Police HQ, and she makes a sorrowful, tired sound. She shifts her eyes to the medium-sized package she'd tucked against her hip, then to the important letter, and back, finally setting the unexpected package on the bed and ripping at the twine around it, deciding to delay opening the letter.

She bypasses the note on top of the package's contents and first pulls out a long, red silk dress, simple and form-fitting, embroidered with exotic flowers in black thread. "Oh, hell," she says under her breath, noticing a pair of black heels hidden underneath it. Someone missed the mark. She has a thing for satin, silk, and lace, and she makes that known to everyone who could benefit from bribing her. However, she does not do dresses. Where would she wear one? She has two weeks of vacation time, but it's a formality. She can't go anywhere, especially not anywhere near Sina as per her agreement with the Military Police, which is the only place a dress this nice would be appropriate. Just as her fingers reach to snatch up the note that she discarded, she catches the glint of liquid amber in a glass bottle hidden underneath a pair of black stockings. She grips it tight around the neck, examines the label, and the corners of her lips slowly turn upward.

She looks over the blended malt scotch, checking the year on the label and raising her eyebrows. She's heard there are only two thousand bottles of the brand in existence. She talks sweetly to the bottle like it's her new best friend, asking, "And who found you for me?"

She picks up the note, obviously dictated to a secretary with perfect, flowery handwriting, and skips straight to the signature at the bottom, reading it and smirking. "Pixis… stupid lush."

She hasn't actually met the Garrison Commander of the southern districts, but, as the note mentions, word gets around, and word is that he has a problem with the bottle that remains a terribly kept secret so long as he remains functional. "Blah, blah, blah," she reads aloud to herself, "Forgive the forwardness… rumored to love fine things much more than other people, especially silks and whiskeys… blah, blah, blah…" She pauses in reading to wonder aloud, "Takes a long time to get to the point."

She assumes he was at least buzzed when this note was dictated, unless he's naturally a rambling, overly familiar, sentimental romantic, the thought of which makes her shudder. She gets a lot of graft. Bribes and intimidation have always been her specialty. But no bribery has ever come with a message so endearing, so she wonders what his game is.

She reads the last paragraph, which comes out like poetry, "The scotch is older than you, but it's sweet like honey and smooth, much like me." She cringes. "Oh my god…" Then she reaches the end, "I hope you'll save a finger of it for me."

Erna can't decide whether to laugh or shudder. She foregoes any reaction in favor of picking up a pen from her desk and writing her own message in her hasty, inelegant handwriting on the back of the note:

 _Pixis,_

 _Returning the heels as I'll never wear them. They make it too difficult to run from creepy older men._

 _Keeping the dress._

 _If you'd like to share a drink, you'll have to come to me. I'm very busy._

 _Bring your own bottle._

 _I'm a terrible host, and I never share._

 _With sincere gratitude,_

 _Instructor Raban, Training Corps_

She folds it in half and shoves it back in the brown paper package with the heels, tying it back up, scribbling "Return to Sender" on it, and dropping it near the door to go out with the next messenger. If Pixis wants something from her, he'll need to be less obtuse. It never occurs to her that the gift could be a purely kind gesture. Those don't exist. He must have heard from someone that she's a useful person to keep on their good side, which is true, she muses to herself as she hides the expensive bottle of whiskey in the back of a desk drawer. She casts an ironic smile at the dress pooled at the foot of her bed. He probably meant for her to get some use out of it at the Military Ball in Sina, which she isn't permitted to attend, partially because the last time she attended a ball an aristocrat ended up dead and in a very compromising position.

Next to the dress, the letter from the Military Police headquarters waits for her, and she winces when she remembers it. "Unnhhh," she whines, before picking it up and tearing at the edge of it with her nail, not bothering to get the letter opener off her desk in her rush to get the unpleasant part over with.

The much less effusive and more formal letter heralds what she'd been afraid of: an audit. The hollow, bureaucratic assurance is that this is normal—infrequent, but normal—and that it's just to make sure that she is upholding the traditional standards of the military. She stifles a pained whimper in her throat and brings her thumb and forefinger to her temples, rubbing in circles.

After setting the opened letter at the center of her desk, she pulls a list from the center drawer and holds it up. It has two columns, "given" and "received." The list refers to bribes, but the word isn't written anywhere. She does what she can to maintain plausible deniability while keeping detailed records. She takes a pen and pauses, unsure if she should even add the dress, not convinced it should count as a bribe received since she doesn't want it and won't do anything in return. She grows anxious, and, worrying her lip, she picks up a sheaf of papers from the same drawer, and they rustle as she separates and organizes them. Two piles; real records and fake. For every entry keeping track of illicit or illegal deals, there is a corresponding fake entry that makes her practices look legitimate. She stares at her figures, creasing her brow, wondering if her fake record-keeping will suffer an audit. Money embezzled from one part of the budget and injected into another, checks and balances bypassed via corruption and extortion. If it doesn't stand up to scrutiny, it will probably countermand her deal with the Military Police who will have no reason to keep her alive. They'll dredge up their case against her and whatever evidence they have surrounding the one murder they got her for. They'll twist the story, make it into a marketable scandal, entertain the aristocracy for a solid month, and pat themselves on the backs ceaselessly.

More than her potential death, she's offended at the thought of being used as entertainment fodder for the rich and bored. She's only beginning to imagine what some wealthy, sheltered, scandalized matron will say regarding the whole thing when there's a loud bang and the door bursts open.

She nearly jumps out of her skin. Her steadily growing paranoia made her imagine that she'd been caught, but the door closes just as quickly, leaving only Levi inside with her.

She turns away from the desk to face him and breathes deeply to calm her racing heart.

"Leave the door unlocked next time," he deadpans emotionlessly.

She narrows her eyes at him and looks him up and down quickly, takes in the dried sweat and dirt crusting his uniform and the bored look on his face betrayed by clenched fists and tightly tensed shoulders. She gives him a quick eye roll and says sarcastically, "Hi, honey, how was your day?"

"You've got some fucking nerve."

He's just shy of shouting, and Erna looks away from him to hide how happy that makes her. "You're early, Snowflake." A quick glance at the window confirms that it's still daylight. "I'm busy," she sneers and turns her back on him, making herself appear as cold and aloof as possible. She looks back to what she was distracted with before he burst in, takes a stack of incriminating records, twists them in her hands, strikes a match from her pocket, lights the ends of them, and holds them while she watches the evidence of her petty crimes burn. She gazes at the flames and in a far-off, dreamy tone, she says, "Come back later," and she watches the small blaze dance, so enamoured with the fire that she's already all but forgotten about him until his hand is suddenly crushing her wrist, making her drop her little torch. He catches it in his other hand before it can hit the floor and he throws it into the wood stove.

He takes her chin in his fingers, forcing her to look him in the eye when he says, "You're not in a position to give orders."

She makes a high, frustrated little groan and attempts to pull her wrist out of his grip while complaining, "Why are you so early?"

"Because I could have died, you fucking lunatic," he shouts, voice filled with disbelief that she could be so dismissive of the actual torture she put him through only hours ago.

But she can be. It's easy. She rolls her eyes at what she sees as his overreaction. "You're obviously fine." She tugs again, hard, away from his hold around her wrist, and he lets go with a sneer. She says, "I wouldn't have let you die," (not entirely true) and, "I told an officer to get you down if you blacked out," (true).

"That's the fucking problem, _Erna_ ," he says, emphasis on her name."After you fucked off, I was able to swing myself upright," he hisses at her through clenched teeth.

"Impressive. Sorry I missed it."

"I held myself like that for two fucking hours," he pauses to let that sink in, "before finally passing out. Then they cut me down and dragged me to the infirmary."

She wants to laugh. It's quite a picture. She restrains herself and says, "It isn't my fault that they take me so _literally_."

He doesn't react at all. She searches his cold eyes for a spark of anger, a glimmer of lost temper, something to satisfy her. She isn't rewarded with anything but his low deadpan informing her without a hint of feeling, "This game isn't going to end well for you."

"What game?" she asks, defiant, offended at being called out.

"You know what game," he answers. He lets go of her wrist and walks past her in the direction of the bed. She watches, pouting about his calm self control denying her the violence and ruin she craves. She crosses her arms and decides not to play at all if he isn't going to be any fun. Her mouth opens to tell him to get the fuck out, but she pauses to watch as he opens the drawer of the bedside table. She tilts her head with curiosity and maybe a little excitement, assuming he's looking for a weapon.

Disappointingly, he takes out her glass dildo instead of a knife, and tosses it to her as he walks toward the bathroom, telling her, "My head is still pounding, and I'm sore as fuck. Get yourself ready with that by the time I'm out of the shower or I'm going to fuck you dry."

Erna's face burns with rage, and, as Levi peels off his jacket, she shouts at his turned back, "I'm not your fucking whore."

"Good," he says calmly without pausing or turning around. "I don't have any money to pay you."

She throws the glass piece at him with enough force to shatter it as she misses her target and it hits the wall beside the bathroom door. He doesn't even flinch. Six inches to the right and he'd be dead on the floor. She balls her fists and stamps her foot. From the bathroom, he says, as if bored by her histrionics, "You're going to regret that."

"You don't have the balls," she shouts after him. Though she doesn't believe his threat was an empty one, she just wants to get a rise out of him. All she gets is the sound of the water running. She mutters under her breath, "Fucker."

She's distracted by a knock at the door. Seething and eager to rip into someone, she answers it without even pausing to wonder what the fuck it might be about, and she roars at the three officers on the other side, "What the fuck did I say? As of this morning, I do not exist to you. How many officers do I need before you can collectively get off of my dick for a full day?"

They cower and cringe, and Erna raises an eyebrow because there are three of them, which means that something is up. Something that is going to piss her off enough that none of them wanted to be the sole bearer of bad news.

"We're sorry, Sir, it's just…"

"There's been, um…"

"It's… um…"

Erna rolls her eyes and snaps at them. "Stand up straight. Stop the fucking whining. Two of you shut up, and one of you say what you felt you needed moral support to tell me."

Her subordinates square up, look at each other with pressed lips and wrinkled foreheads, and one of them blurts out clearly, "The horses are loose."

Erna tilts her head back, pinches the bridge of her nose, and sighs for a beat, then says, "Elaborate."

"Um…they got out of the stable… no one knows how… they're running around and…"

"And you want me to do what about it?" she snaps.

"Um…"

"Can you predict what I'm going to tell you to do?" she asks, disgusted with them.

They freeze in terror and don't answer right away, instead staring back at her for a moment. She waits for an uncomfortably long time before finally one of them hazards a guess. "Go catch them?"

"Yes!" she shouts, "Go catch the fucking horses! Put them back in the stable! Do not come to update me on your progress, success, or failure, and thank your good fucking fortune that I am busy, you useless—" she slams the door suddenly, not even wasting her breath on any nouns for that adjective to modify. She goes to lock the door, but the steel bolt is hanging by a thread from Levi's entrance. Her exasperation comes out as a quick, high growl, and she stalks through the open bathroom door, saying, "Snowflake, you didn't by any chance stop by the stables on your way here?" knowing the answer already.

"I did," he answers evenly from behind the shower curtain. She can't see him, but she can clearly imagine his straight-faced expression.

She shakes her head in frustrated incredulity. "Why?"

"What you should really be asking yourself," he deadpans, "is why it took them twenty minutes to finally come and tell you."

"Are you trying to make me paranoid by getting me to question the loyalty of my officers?" she scoffs. "Loyalty is a weak trait. It doesn't hold up." She leans against the door frame and crosses her arms. "They waited because they're afraid, and fear is visceral. There's no bargaining or negotiating with fear."

"You're paranoid already if you think I'm trying to bluff you," he points out.

"Then what were you trying to do?"

"Keep them busy," he answers. "It isn't the middle of the night. Too many people around to hear you scream."

"Of course," Erna sneers. She overcomplicated his motivations, because his actions are making her feel like her control is slipping through her fingers, and he's right. She is paranoid.

"I'm gonna be in here two more minutes," he reminds her. "You sure you want to waste that time talking to me?"

"Why? Because of that empty threat to fuck me dry?" Erna squares her shoulders, lifts her chin, and turns around, going back out into the main room. "That's the least worrisome thing I've had to deal with today."

"Not an empty threat," he calls after her, but she just rolls her eyes and thinks that he doesn't understand what she considers foreplay. All she has to do is say the right thing to elicit a violent reaction from him and dryness won't be a concern, so she goes back to her desk, splays her palms along its edge and leans into it as she stares at scratchy notes and lists that she would be better off burning, and scanning her fake records and budgets for inconsistencies that she could have missed.

The more she tries to focus, the more she feels disorganized and dizzy. Her heart beats too aggressively, and, when she tries to focus, her head feels fuzzy like cotton. She closes her eyes and feels an overwhelming need to exert control over something. She shoots up from the desk like a whip and turns, heading for the bathroom door again to tell Levi to get the fuck out and go back to his bunk or wherever the fuck he's supposed to be unless he wants her to contrive some reason to put him in solitary confinement, because she can do that, and, at this, moment she needs to.

Only, she's stopped in her tracks when she sees him appear in the door frame, naked, mostly dry but for little pools of water at the edge of his collarbone and a droplet or two that he missed that are running down his thigh slowly while he rubs his damp hair with a towel. She forgets what she'd been ready to say, but a soft, "Fuck…" makes its way out of her parted lips. He looks up with the slightest smirk, and she collects herself, quickly adding an, "Off," to save face.

"Yeah?"

She tries to swallow with her dry mouth and turns around so that she won't have to look at him while she says, "Yeah, seriously. I'm too fucking busy for this. Hope you enjoyed the shower, now get the fuck out," and she turns back to the desk, looking down at the work that should really be her top priority. She can feel his gaze burning a hole in the back of her head, and she ignores it. He's going to leave, or he's going to fuck her up. He doesn't give her time to think on which she would prefer. He stalks her with fluid, purposeful strides, and she acts like she's unaware by turning a page over and picking up a pencil.

The struggle is short. She yelps at the sharp pain of her hip bones hitting the edge of the desk, but it's cut short and muffled when his hand grips the back of her neck and pushes her down, cheek pressed flat against the dark varnished wood. Her pencil clatters against the floor. The paper she'd been pretending to read tears under her palm when she tries to reach back and hit him, but he catches her hand and slams it back down, leaning over her, crushing her. A shrill noise of frustration cuts the air, and her body jerks as she fights to try to stand, but he holds her still with a cynical laugh.

He sneers at her, "Is this what you wanted when you left me hanging in the sun?"

Erna stops fighting and relaxes. His weight feels good crushing her. She answers with a demure, "Maybe."

It does nothing to lessen his anger, though he releases his hold on her head and wrist and places his hands around her waist instead, grunting, "You're a psychotic little bitch."

She leans forward and unravels, stretching her arms straight out in front of her, linking her fingers and melting against the wooden surface, letting her frenetic paranoia dissipate as her head clears, and she concentrates on the tight grip of his hands.

He reaches for one of the buckles of her harness. She moans contentedly and separates her hips from the desk's edge to help him get better access. When she leans back, he grunts slightly, rips at a buckle, and pins her to the desk again by shoving his hips against her, his cock pushing between her legs. She moans at the rough treatment, feeling very pleased with herself while she turns her face and presses her smile into the smooth desktop. He pulls her pants and white lace underwear down to her knees in one or two violent tugs. A hand curls around her waist, holding her still again, as if he needed to.

"You almost killed me just to get a rise out of me," he says quietly, with a deadly calm, dark edge to his observation, "so that I would be rough with you?"

She murmurs her affirmation. He's correct. And she's getting what she wanted. She whines, needy and restless when he draws his hips back, moving his cock away from her and giving her some literal wiggle room. Her hips rock back for him, and his hand tightens around her waist, squeezing so hard that it hurts. She hisses and smiles at the pain and says, "It worked before."

"I'm not," he says, taking his cock in hand and pressing against her, angling and searching for the opening in her closed thighs, "encouraging this." He drives forward hard past her dry lips, and her arms recoil from their relaxed position splayed over the desk, elbows shooting back, palms and splayed fingers pressing to the wood with a surprised, pained shout. She pushes herself up, automatically rises on her toes to escape the painful intrusion, and, just as quickly and automatically, he takes a fistful of her hair and pushes her back down so hard that even her lungs feel compressed.

It burns and stings like a razor, but, while the pain is real and acute, she sees it as an inconvenience secondary to the outrage because how fucking dare he? She makes a noise like a growling screech, a monstrous sound that he muffles by turning her face down with the fist tangled in her hair while he pushes into her thrust after thrust by half inches, grunting with the effort of pressing against her reflexively tight cunt until finally he's buried in her and, with one more brutal thrust, lifts her toes off the floor and jolts the desk against the wall. Erna breathes deep and fast, oxygen being a desperate anesthetic when nothing else is available.

"That fucking hurt?" he gloats because he wants it to, and he releases her hair. He opts instead to press his palm between her shoulder blades and pin her that way while her hip bones beat a steady, painful percussion against the edge of the desk while he fucks her, bruising her.

She'd wanted it to hurt, only, there are different kinds of hurt. This isn't one that she's fond of. He thinks he's making a point about the consequences of her actions when he says, "Be nice," in between thrusts, grunting, "and maybe next time... there'll be foreplay," thoroughly pleased with being the cause of the pain twisting her facial expression into a tight wince. He moans and slides his hand down to parallel the one at her waist, pulling her back in rhythm to meet his hips, pushing deep and grinding against her. His fingers dig into her skin. He looks down at her while she clamps down on him like a vise, hissing in awe at how tight and hot her resistant walls feel, stilling and enjoying the moment for a short pause before, in a sudden motion, her nails are swiping back at his abs, catching and clawing three bright red lines into his skin before he catches her wrist and holds it in the air.

Her shoulder makes a snapping, popping sound as he lifts her by that wrist onto her feet, and she can't feel the pain that should be shooting through her arm when he lets it go. He takes advantage of the shock to grab her around her middle, lift her off her feet, and walk her back to the bed while she dizzily wonders where the feeling through her shoulder went and how she got turned around.

"You wanted to get a reaction out of me," he growls, ripping her pants all the way off, wrenching her legs apart, and getting on his knees between them. "You got it."

She squeezes her thighs, trying to hold him at bay to no avail, but he pauses to let her speak when she opens her mouth and informs him, "Getting fucked dry isn't one of my kinks."

"Yeah?" he retorts, impassive and unmoved. He curls his hands under her and drags her closer by her hips before promising her, "Not mine either," spitefully, like she brought this on herself, and he's an innocent and impartial proxy of justice. He leans down over her, slides a hand between her and the mattress until his palm is between her shoulder blades. He lifts her torso with one hand and angles her hips with the other, then pushes again. When his cock meets with tense resistance, he growls, shoves past, and impales her.

She feels every drag and stab with burning acuity and hisses, "I'm going to fuck you up in training tomorrow."

"Fine," he breathes. "Then we can keep going back and forth like this." He lowers her to the mattress and fucks into her faster, smirking slightly, vaunting the power he thinks he has over her with a groan as he buries himself to the hilt inside her, and her fingers reflexively reach and dig at any part of him she can reach, as if holding something could ease the pain. He tells her with his low, sadistic deadpan, "This isn't as good as when you're wet and screaming my name, but," he pulls back and slams his hips into hers again, making her inhale sharply with a cringe, "not bad."

Just as he picks up a rough pace again and his thrusts start to stutter and get uneven instead of methodical and deliberate, like he's chasing release, Erna closes her eyes and wills her body into a mid-course correction. She can't ignore the pain. It's there, and she remains physically aware of it, but with practiced discipline she wills the tension out of her hands, her legs, her core, relaxing herself utterly, wiping any expression from her face, and opening her eyes again. It takes him a moment to notice, but when he does, he pauses, sneers at her glassy, dull eyes, and growls, livid at not being able to see the pain on her blank face. He thrusts hard, again, but even inside her there isn't any resistance and the jerk and slap of his hips only jolts her limp body like it's a soft inanimate object. She stares, her eyes as unfocused and empty as a doll's. He grabs her shoulders, shakes her, makes a couple more half-hearted stabs into her heat before pulling out, disgusted.

Erna hums back to life and sits up after he gets off the bed and stands. She cups her hand over her mons and winces. "You made your fucking point."

He sneers at her and asks, "Where did you learn that trick?" as if what she just did was any more disgusting than what he'd done.

"Don't worry about it. Just know that if you try that shit again, I'll kill you and make it look like a training accident," she says, clutching her right arm and squeezing it, making sure it isn't broken or dislocated anywhere.

"If you try to kill me again, I will fuck your actual corpse," he snaps back with far more calmness than those words should ever be said with.

"I'd believe you, but you could barely keep it up when I stopped moving." She coos with sarcastic sympathy while checking herself for blood. The skin between her legs feels sore but looks okay and unbruised. Nothing torn or broken.

"You get credit for figuring out that it's only fun when you struggle."

"You get the same for figuring out that coming out hot and flying into a rage gets me off."

He leans over and she moves back as he looms over her. "I wanted to," he says, kneeling to the bed again as she crawls backward away from him, slowly trapping her against the headboard and under him. "I thought a lot about choking you until your lips turned blue…"

He reaches for her neck. She shudders. He gives her a sardonic smile as his fingers tighten around her throat, and she murmurs, "I would have loved that."

"I know."

He locks eyes with her, applies only the smallest amount of pressure to her throat, and stills. She waits, then arches up, pressing her neck into his hands, and whispers, "Please."

He raises an eyebrow at her and smirks, but doesn't tighten his grip. He only says, "You're fucked up."

There's a flash of indignance across her face as she narrows her eyes and tells him, "You just tried to rape me, but I'm the fucked up one."

"I just tried to rape you," he confirms calmly, rubbing his thumb over her skin, still not choking her, "and you were very calm about it."

"Oh, that," she murmurs. "Well…" she trails off with a morbid, calamitous little smile and reaches up to link her hands loosely behind his neck. She purrs at him, "You gonna make it up to me?"

"Are you going to lay off me in training?"

"If I have to," she pouts, "but that's sincerely my only source of entertainment around here."

Levi rises up on his knees and tells her darkly, "I'll keep you fucking entertained." Before she can ask him how he plans to do that, he shifts downward, sliding his hands down her ribs and over her waist before settling to grip at her thighs and open her legs wide, cupping his palms under her ass, leaning down, and lifting her to his mouth. His face disappears between her thighs, and she gasps as his tongue circles her clit before hungrily lapping at her. His tongue delves inside her, and his hand caresses her leg, fingers curling over her skin when he hits a sweet spot and makes her muscles twitch. He rolls her clit carefully between two deft fingers, turns his head to suck a bruise onto her inner thigh, and she whispers, "Fuck, fuck fuck…"

He proves to have an incredibly good memory that notes and archives her reaction to every slight change in pace and position, and for minutes he uses it against her to get her to the edge of orgasm again and again. The fourth time that he slows down and eases her off of the brink she twists the sheets in her hands, tilts her head back, and sobs.

"Something wrong?" he asks from between her legs, the smug little shit.

"Ple-ease," she whines, the fluttering tightness in her abdomen becoming overwhelming and unbearable.

He doesn't say anything to torment her further, apparently satisfied at her level of says only, "I want to feel you," and he presses two fingers slowly, carefully inside her, filling her without dragging or burning or curling, not to fuck her with them, just to feel how she clenches when his lips and tongue find her clit again. He lets her move her hips and grind and chase her orgasm, pressing against his parted lips and shouting. He starts to get up, moving his knees underneath him and looming over her again, looking down at her while he presses his thumb over her clit and pumps his fingers slowly with every flex of her legs, working her through her orgasm until she's oversensitive and flinching like his touch is too hot and she's being burned.

She groans and nudges him weakly with her knee, begging him to ease off, and he obliges. The pressure of his fingers disappears, leaving her feeling empty and already restless. She wants more even though it would be impossible while she's still reeling from aftershocks, twitching and moaning. She turns her head and closes her eyes, closes her legs, and listens to the rustle of him moving. When she feels flesh press against her lips, she opens them and offers her tongue without a thought. She tastes herself. His fingers curl against her tongue. She closes her lips and sucks on them hard and hears a deep rumble hum through his throat.

He moves, the weight on the mattress shifts, there's a hand in her hair, and a pop as he pulls his fingers from her mouth. She whines again and writhes, reaching. Her hand finds his thigh, hard and rigid, and she curls her fingers to scratch just as something larger pushes past her lips and invades her mouth. Her tongue flicks against the head of his cock, lapping greedily, her cheeks hollow as she sucks him in, and her fingers uncurl and go slack, no longer filled with need for violence and consequence.

He hisses and curses softly, breathing deeply and loosening his hand from her hair as she eagerly bobs a quick rhythm, sucking him down further and further. When he catches his breath, he asks, "How long do you need?"

Her eyes snap open. She looks up at him and hums inquisitively while flicking her tongue against the underside of his head. His eyes close as he shudders and hisses before calming again and making himself clear, "How long do you need after you come? When can I fuck you?"

She curls her fingers around the base of his shaft and leans back. With a smile, she says, "A while," before licking a broad stripe up the side of his cock, eyes locked on his as she swirls her tongue around the head. She licks down the other side and pumps him with her hand.

He growls, obviously not pleased with that answer. Erna kisses and licks at the tip of his cock, slowly and reverently, whispering, "We have more than twelve hours."

"And I want to spend all of it fucking you."

"Shouldn't have made me come then," she teases and grabs for the backs of his thighs, pulling him into her mouth, and opening her throat for him.

Levi tilts his head back and hisses, sounding lustful and regretful at the same time, agreeing with her, "I shouldn't have."

She hums before taking him deeper, cutting off her air. He tells her, "You don't deserve it," and she digs her fingernails into his skin. He pushes his hips forward and rests his hands on her head, steadying it while he draws back and thrusts into her throat again, chastising her ironically, "I'm too good to you."

When he draws back and gives her air, she whines a needy little noise in agreement and quickly follows his hips with her mouth, choking herself again, pressing her nose to his pubic hair and feeling his hard cock block her airways again. He curses, loses the composure it took to speak, grips her hair tight, and finally starts fucking her face. Erna holds her breath, but for every stutter and opportunity she moans and inhales and quiets again as his cock presses past her tongue and deep into her throat.

One of his hands goes for her neck. It curls around and squeezes while the other still holds her hair by the roots, so that when she gets dizzy and her head lolls he can hold it in place and keep fucking her mouth. He comes deep in her throat, shuddering and grunting, thrusting and still trying to get deeper as he empties all the anger he'd been harboring into her. She sucks like she's grateful for it, and, when he suddenly pulls away, having come up to the edge of discomfort, she looks up at him and asks, "Now how long do _you_ need?"

He shakes his head, brings his fingers to his temples, and closes his eyes. "My head is still killing me." He turns and sits, leaning against the headboard next to her and stretching his legs out in front of him.

Erna wipes her mouth and rises to her knees. She straddles his hips and looks down at him. "Poor baby."

He reaches for her, grabs her by the shirt, and pulls her closer, making her lose her balance and teeter. She steadies herself with a hand on the wall, and, before she can stop him, he rips her shirt down the middle, buttons popping and raining down onto the mattress and the floor. She squeals in anger, but he ignores her reaction. He hooks a finger under her bra and sneers at it, saying to himself, "Really?" and then muttering while he reaches under the pillow behind him with his other hand, "Where's that fucking knife?"

And before she can even register his intent and tell him to stop, he's slipped the dull edge of a knife against her skin and sliced her bra in half. Erna looks down at her ruined clothes in horror while he nonchalantly holds the knife in his teeth to free his hands and tug the torn and cut clothing off of her. She rips her arm out of the sleeve he's pulling at and, once freed, punches him in the shoulder and shouts, "The bra unclasps! That was un-fucking-necessary. I liked that bra!"

He pulls the shirt down and off her other arm and, with smirking satisfaction, takes the knife from his teeth while looking her up and down. "White doesn't suit you," he replies with a hint of cheek hidden under his deadpan tone.

"Yeah, well, it doesn't show through the uniform either, you fucking prick."

He smirks at her outrage and rests a hand around her waist, pressing and gliding his thumb over her abs, twirling the knife absently in his other hand. "I'm ready to go again, by the way."

"Fuck you," she says in disbelief. "It's been two minutes."

"I have a lot of stamina," he says matter of factly, "and I had a lot of time to think about fucking you to death while I was in the infirmary."

She slaps his hand away and mutters, "Literally going to kill me." She goes to get off the bed and stand, but his hand snatches at her wrist and holds. She pulls, and he pulls back, and it's about to be a struggle when there's a knock at the door, and they both freeze. Erna tilts her head back and groans. "Fuck me."

"You want to answer that first?"

"Shut up," she hisses a low whisper, looks down at her clothes on the bed and the floor, drops her shoulders and makes a frustrated little shriek when the knocking continues, and she accepts that she's going to have to get up. Levi lets her go, and she sits on the edge of the bed for a moment, then looks to him. He folds his hands behind his head nonchalantly. She scowls at him, annoyed that he can be so fucking calm. Then she hisses, "Give me that," and snatches the knife away from him, stands up, ignores her clothes, and walks to the door naked, leaning her forearm against it and then resting her head against her arm tiredly, steeling herself for a second before shouting, "If I have to open this door, it's only going to be so that I can slit your throat, and that isn't an exaggeration! I will bury you in a shallow grave out in the woods, tell your friends that you went back to your family, and tell your family that you fucking deserted."

There's silence, then a quiet, "Sorry," just audible from the other side of the door. "Leaving your dinner here, Sir."

Erna smirks at herself for forgetting that meals were a thing, and she turns around. On her way to her closet, she tosses the knife back to Levi because she likes when he holds it against her skin. He catches it and watches her slide the closet door open. While she looks for a robe to put on, she asks, "Did you eat?"

"When would I have?" he asks with dry irony.

"Oh," she says distractedly, remembering that she kept him from breakfast and left him hanging from the 3DMG training device all day, "right." Her fingertips linger over the sleeve of something silky and pink. She reaches for a hanger.

Levi stops her by saying, "Don't wear anything you don't want me to rip apart," and keeps twirling the knife in his fingers, bored with everything that doesn't presently involve fucking her.

She huffs to herself, thoroughly annoyed, but then she remembers she has something that she wouldn't mind ripping apart, and she turns around. He sits up when he sees her heading back for the bed, but she walks past, to the foot of it, and reaches down for the dress that got pushed to the floor at some point. It slips over her head easily and glides over her skin like oil, like it was made and measured specifically for her, except for the length. A few inches of excess fabric pool at her feet. If she meant to keep it then it would need to be hemmed.

As she tiptoes into view of the full length mirror, Levi tells her, "Red suits you better."

Erna frowns at her reflection. It's beautiful.

"I'll never get to wear it."

"Wearing it for me doesn't count for anything?" he asks with snide sarcasm.

She ignores him and pulls up the zipper at her back, moves to the door, and opens it enough to kneel down, pick up the tray with her dinner, and slam it shut again. She takes a roll and offers Levi the rest, explaining, "I'd be mildly disturbed if you passed out while fucking me."

"Not as disturbed as I was when you did your living dead girl act," he quips back, though he takes the food and eats in her bed while she opens a new bottle of whiskey from her stash underneath it. While she drinks from the bottle, he says, "I thought the food you got would be better than what I could get in the mess hall."

"Nope," she says simply.

He raises a thin brow at her. "Why not?"

"People with power forget that they are singular and those underneath them are many."

"So you eat the same shitty food as the rest of us, and you think that prevents a mutiny?" he asks with a derisive sneer.

"It helps."

Levi takes a big bite out of a baked potato, and, in between chews, he asks her with mild curiosity, "How long have you been doing this?"

"A couple years." She says quietly, thinking to herself how little and how much time that sounds and feels like.

"Which branch did you serve with before this?"

"I didn't," she says first, then raises her eyes, thinks, and corrects herself, "I did a few months with the Survey Corps."

He pauses and his head tilts slightly. "I thought Instructors had to put in their time before taking this cushy ass job. That's why they're all crusty old men… except you."

Her only response to him is a shrug, and he waits for her to elaborate on that, but she keeps her mouth shut and stares right back at him until he breaks the silence. "Then what were you before?"

The whiskey starts to go to Erna's head and warms her cheeks. She smiles and asks playfully, "What do you _think_ I was?"

He says quickly, with a straight face, "You suck dick like a whore."

Her smile turns to a scowl. "Fuck you."

"Bet I'm not wrong."

Erna looks away from him, her lips twisting to the side in annoyance. He goes on, "But those scars tell a story." He points at her with his fork, at the scars raised here and there over the skin revealed by the dress, on her arms, her shoulders, across her chest, and, for the first time in a long while, she feels conscious of them and of being uncovered and exposed to someone else's scrutiny.

Erna doesn't confirm or deny his assertion. She just takes a bite from the hunk of bread in her hand so she won't get sick, and she tests him. "What story?"

"Don't know," he answers once he's finished chewing. He finishes the last of her dinner and sets the tray on the bedside table, then nods toward the glass bottle neck getting strangled in her hand. "You going to finish that whole thing on your own?"

She takes another swig before surrendering it. With her in reach, he takes the opportunity to hold the bottle in one hand and grab her with the other. She falls and sits next to him without any resistance, but he doesn't ease his grip on her arm until he takes a good long pull off the bottle and is ready to relinquish it to her. Before sucking on the bottle's mouth, she leans back and rests on her elbows. He stays sitting up on the edge of the bed. She has a good view of the back of his head and the muscles of his shoulders and back, and she broods over him and his frustratingly alluring darkness and masked brutality tucked away under an expressionless exterior, and she mutters, "You're right."

He cracks his neck and stretches. "About what?"

She kisses the bottle. "I _was_ a whore."

He shrugs as if that isn't much of a revelation and says, "So was my mother."

Automatically Erna sneers, "So you were an accident."

He doesn't react at all for a beat. He stills. Then, just as her gut is starting to tighten with foreboding that she's gone too far, she sees his shoulders shrug, and he says, "Maybe. She died when I was a kid. I never got to ask."

Erna doesn't bother with 'sorry' because she isn't, and to pretend sympathy is beneath her. Instead, she reaches forward and nudges his elbow with the bottle, letting him take it from her again. She muses, "My pimp was more careful than that. The hysterectomy was a requirement post-interview."

"Interview," he scoffs darkly.

"That's what he called it," she sing-songs.

The liquid in the now half-empty bottle sloshes as he tips it back. "So you fucked your way to this job?" he asks bitterly.

"Oh, no," she says, rising up onto her palms with a little thrill, her eyes going wide, excited to correct him on that point. "I only worked for a few years. When I was fourteen, a regular client felt that I was in need of saving, and I let him be my hero and whisk me away to a cold, shitty basement apartment under a butcher's shop."

"Fourteen," he says, not so much a question as a repetition to clarify and be sure.

"I interviewed when I was eleven."

Levi's response is to tip his head back and drink, only coming up for air a few moments later to whisper, "Fuck," very much to himself in a haunted way.

He doesn't say 'sorry' either.

Erna relaxes again, lies back on her elbows, tilts her head back, and groans, "Don't get all depressed about it." She looks back up for a reaction, sees only his back, still tense, his shoulders hunched over slightly, his head shaking, and she rolls her eyes at him. "It's not like I was kidnapped or anything. It was a choice. I didn't need any rescuing. I'd _told_ him that."

Levi wipes his mouth after another gulp of bitter whiskey, and asks, "Who?"

"The man," she answers, frustrated that he isn't keeping up. She sits up and takes the bottle from him, intending to keep it this time. "My first boyfriend. Well… only boyfriend…"

He gives her an incredulous look, the corners of his eyes wrinkling just slightly with a hint of a playful expression, his shock forgotten. He hooks the shoulder strap of her dress with a finger and seems to get distracted by the smoothness of the silk while he asks, "What happened with him then?"

"I killed him."

He stops. He lifts his chin and looks at her. She smiles, tilts her head, and says, "You remind me of him."

"Yeah, I feel like we have a lot in common already," he deadpans sarcastically as he lets go of her dress.

"Just the musculature," she sighs as she runs her hand up his arm and over his shoulder, and, when he doesn't withdraw, she pushes at him lightly, telling him, "He was a fighter…a boxer…" He lies back for her and lets her straddle his hips after she pauses to impatiently tug the long skirt of her dress up. She splays her fingers over his abs that she'll never get bored of touching and muses, "that's where the similarities begin and end. He was sentimental and not very bright."

"And," he adds, "you know, a pedophile."

"Well, they all were."

"Tch," he flashes his teeth. "Disgusting."

She reaches down between them, grips him and squeezes and draws her hand up lazily, slowly stroking him, getting him hard despite his disgust. He looks at odds with himself, like he doesn't think he should be getting hard while she talks about such abhorrent things. She says, "Nevermind. You don't want to hear about it."

Levi blinks long and slow and his lips part as she teases him. He lifts his neck like tipping his head back for water, and, when his eyes open again, they're free of any conflict. He's let the inner demon envelop him, and he says, "Tell me," in a husky breath while she strokes him. He is still a hard read, but she can tell that he's smart at least. Smart men get bored easily, and they love a good story to punctuate the monotony.

She circles her palm over his slick head and says, "I didn't _need_ to be rescued."

His name was John, fitting. He'd had close-cut black hair and piercing, ice blue eyes that were never still. Good jaw, slightly crooked nose, dirty clothes. That was thirteen-year-old Erna's quick assessment when she caught sight of him beyond the curtains that separated the lounge from the reception area of her home/workplace. She saw him before he knew she existed. He looked fragile in the way that exceedingly strong men always do, so dangerous, so insecure, so easily threatened. She nuzzled into her soft floor cushion and lifted her chin to share a look with a girl splayed over the couch nearby, wanting someone to acknowledge the nod of her chin and roll of her eyes toward the the new guy she could see conversing with the concierge in the lobby, but the other girl was already passed out. She couldn't handle her opium. A thin line of drool hung from the corner of her lips. With a sigh, Erna picked the unfinished pipe from the girl's lax fingers and held it in her teeth while she made a reach for an oil lamp on a low table.

She turned back and peered past the flame flaring up eight inches in front of her with narrowed eyes. The scene, half-obscured by the curtain, was of the new man raising some kind of fuss at the desk. It took a lot of balls to argue about terms and price in this situation. Her curiosity was piqued before he settled with the concierge and was pointed in the direction of the fuschia curtain.

He surveyed his surroundings and the dozen or so other girls lounging, talking, smoking, and staring, before coming to loom over her. He told her to get up. She told him that she wasn't finished and craned her neck to suck on the long pipe she'd just stolen. Rather than move onto another girl, he waited, stock still, but not with patience, staring at her with a raging fire in his eyes until she finally stood, less than half his height but sizing him up with confidence. She told him directly, without much care one way or another, that she could refuse clients for any reason, and she looked past him to the man out front whose job it was to physically handle any problems.

He reacted almost not at all, kept his hands clasped in front of him, nodded slightly, and said that was fair in a solemn, respectful tone in direct contrast with his behavior in the lobby. While she made up her mind about whether or not she wanted to take him upstairs or motion for the security man outside to dispose of him so that she could be treated to the dry twig sound of snapping bone that she liked so much, she offered him the pipe in her hand, but he shook his head, said he had a fight later and needed to stay sharp. That made up her mind for her.

In her room she asked him if he wanted her innocent, slutty, or terrified. Every client's wants always fell into one of those three categories. He said a little of each would be fine.

Levi twitches under her palm, hisses through his teeth, and interrupts her, "That's horrible."

"That's _life_ ," she answers, "life _is_ horrible, people are _disgusting_ , and there's no point to any of it."

He closes his eyes, hums in agreement, and bucks up into her hand. She presses her thumb to the precum beading at his slit and swirls it around, listens to him moan deep and low, and she keeps pumping him in her hand while she leans over him and licks at the bruise encircling his neck. "I can stop," she breathes hot against him, shifting herself, bringing her hips forward so that she can rub the tip of his cock against her opening, and she mouths against his jawline, "if it's too dark."

She feels his jaw twitch under her lips and she thinks he just smiled, though she can't see with her eyes closed. He puts his hands around her waist, pulls the silk dress up, and reaches down to glide his hands over her thighs, guiding her slowly, gently forward and back, so that she slides over his shaft, and he whispers with mild fascination, "You're so fucking wet," and his fingers dig at the muscles of her legs while he lifts his hips, rubbing against her without penetrating. He goads her, "Keep going. I want to know why you killed him."

She stretches back upright, looking down at him, her shoulders back, hands pressing down against his chest and measuring his even breaths. Her hips follow his hands, and it's a game now to remain composed and coherent while his cock is so close to fucking into her. She takes a deep breath and shudders, then tries again, reciting as clearly as is manageable, "He came once a week."

She didn't have any repeat customers. Not after she learned how to get men deep into their darkest fantasies and desperate to finish, on the razor edge of orgasm, and then stop, stop whatever it was that was getting them off, cruelly and suddenly. If they liked her eager and whorish, she was suddenly a naif. If they were there to fuck an innocent little girl, she narrowed her eyes and became precocious. If they wanted her to scream and cry, she would cut out mid-howl and look bored. They would stutter, they would try to get there without her help, but the fantasy would be ruined, and they would beg on their fucking knees for her to go back to what was working, to finally finish. Men in the throes of ecstasy suddenly interrupted are beyond reason. She collected entire wallets as tips. Unfortunately, when lucidity returned, no one was foolish enough to ask for her again.

He was safe from her tricks in that he was stupid with money. He was younger—twenty-nine, she thinks she remembers—and, when he came, it was only with enough for her services and a shot of hard alcohol before his fight. He got more money after winning, and spent it on food and booze and rent, having just enough left for her at the end of the week.

She gave him more than the standard hour. It was her prerogative. Her pimp allowed whatever it took to keep girls happy. Opium, time off, freedom to socialize, making their own hours, and refusing specific clients on any grounds, so long as they earned enough for him to make a healthy profit and were appropriately grateful for the freedom and the roof over their heads—no moping about.

When John offered to save her from this place, she laughed. She couldn't stop laughing for minutes. He, of course, was wounded and left in a huff without allowing her to explain, slamming the door while she rolled on the bed, holding her sides. She was free to leave if she wanted. That's what she was told, anyway, anytime she was caught looking more depressed than was attractive.

Why would she want to leave? It was warm and safe. The work was horrible and disgusting, but she could smoke and drink and dull the sick feelings that crashed in all around her sometimes.

But he came back, and he learned slowly that she liked bruises and scars and stories and descriptions of violence. He had plenty of those things. He seduced her away with them. If she went with him, she could watch him fight. If she lived with him, he promised she would get to see more bloodshed and destruction than the occasional overstepping client getting tossed out onto the street.

The tradeoff, she learned afterward, was a change in quality of life. His apartment was in a cold, windowless cellar under a butcher's shop, suitable for him. He trained whenever he felt cold, doing pull ups in the doorway, hanging on by the white tips of his fingers, or suddenly throwing lightning-quick jabs at a sand-filled sack hanging from the ceiling by a chain. Erna wore hats and scarves and mittens to stave off hypothermia. His bed was a wooden pallet with thin, dirty blankets and no pillow and she let him fuck her on it more than she would have otherwise just to sap his body heat.

But his promise was good. Within the first twenty-four hours, she got to watch him beat two men to death. They were supposed to retrieve her. Apparently the freedom to leave was only meant to be a comforting illusion. She watched with wide-eyed excitement and noted how fragile the human skull actually is. Then, with both men laid out, their chests dead still, John turned and winked at her before setting to work dragging the bodies up the stairs. There was no follow-up attempt. She wasn't worth that much.

She attended every fight religiously, calm with hands folded in her lap and watching, awestruck with the ruthlessness and the noise and the cruelty. Violence and intensity followed John everywhere, so she clung to him, going to the bar with him after a fight, letting him wrench from her grasp when his temper flared, stoked by a look or a comment from someone, or anything. He was a savage drunk. It didn't take much. She didn't help. She looked only twelve at best, and their relationship drew sneers and expressions of pure disgust that Erna didn't hesitate to point out, and John never balked at the chance for a confrontation. He looked for it with his alert, ice blue eyes almost as much as she did.

When she couldn't keep up with the late nights and the noise and the drinking, and her eyes fought to stay open, he deposited her at home, tucked her in, and went back out. His affection for her remained ardent despite his cheating. She didn't mind, was even relieved. Her sexual appetite was nonexistent, and his was a large pyre that she was surrendered to when no one else was available.

His fondness of her waned as she got older. He got bored of her, wasn't attracted to her when she started to look more like a teenager. She didn't care, but he felt guilty, and he lashed out. He started arguments with her more and more, and often complained about the cost of keeping her.

"If you didn't care," Levi teases, lips brushing the hollow of her shoulder, "why kill him?"

She tilts her head and bends her neck away from his touch as he pushes the strap of her dress down and peels the silk clinging to her breasts away. His palm pushes flat against the valley between them, making her sit up straight again. When had she leaned into him? He grinds his hips up and bucks her lightly, teasingly, staring at her with a sharp hunger and a sarcastic smirk.

"If you're impatient," she says, trying to sound aloof even with her flushed cheeks and wet lips, "I can stop."

"Finish your story," he orders her. She gives him a sly, satisfied look. She's going to. Only, then he finds her clit, soaked and rubbing against his cock, and he presses it lightly, swirling the pad of a finger over it while his cock slides between her lips without entering, and as she closes her eyes and moans, all her words get blotted out by the greedy mantra in her head of _more, more, more,_ until she hears him tease her with an added, "If you can."

"Not fair," she pouts.

"Finish," he insists, eyes bright as knives.

"I…" her hips stutter completely on their own, and she whimpers. This was supposed to be her game, not his. It was supposed to make him uncomfortable and disgusted and conflicted while she got him hard. Her lips pout while she bears down to grind against him because it feels so good, and she wants more.

She's broken out of her fog by a stinging slap to her ass. Her eyes open wide and she looks down at him, his muscular body shaded with more and more black and silver in the dying light.

He says calm and clear, "Now."

"Fine," she whines with gentle futility. Her mouth opens to start again, only no words come out. She pauses for a beat and her brow wrinkles as she thinks, undistracted by the roll of his hips. She looks at him and with slight wonder asks, "Where was I?"

"Did I make you forget?"

"No," she says quickly, petulant and offended and lying.

"It seemed like you were close to finishing."

She pushes her hips against him, rocks against the pressure of his fingers, and sighs, "I am."

"The story," he corrects her.

She makes a frustrated little groan and finally slaps his hand away from her, narrowing her eyes at him. He smirks and holds his hands up. She remembers where he sidetracked her and she says defensively, "I _didn't_ care."

Cheating was fine. Arguing was fine. She never cared about him in the first place and only stayed because it was convenient, and she liked the excitement he provided. She could take him just as easily affectionate or cold. She didn't even care as much as she should have when one night he came home shitfaced, ripped her out of bed, and beat her before he raped her and then beat her again after.

Levi winces and Erna reminds him, "You wanted to hear it."

She'd experienced worse. Not all at once. But what John did to her didn't plunge her into as black depths as those kinds of offenses did in the past, the first few times they happened, when she was younger and less resilient. She wouldn't have killed him for it. The thought didn't cross her mind. He even cried after, and she comforted him as well as she could while holding a cold, wet cloth to her eye.

"You should have killed him for that," Levi deadpans.

"I didn't," she says. "I didn't kill him for anything _he_ did."

"Then _what_?"

It was the next night, after he'd apologized. He was sweet and solicitous with her all day, and in the evening she tagged along to watch him fight again, because she never tired of it. A lot of things were boring to her, but never that. But, for the first time, it was different. It was the way people looked at her. She was familiar enough to the managers, fighters, gamblers, and various degenerate scum that most ignored her as a common piece of scenery. Only, they saw her with her black, swollen eye, and there was a quick flash of recognition that something was different, and then… something else.

"What?" Levi asks as she looks up, remembering and searching for the right words, interested again, rolling his hips against her and sliding the head of his cock over her wet lips in a slow, steady, unrushed rhythm.

"It was like," she pauses, thinks, sways in motion with him, "disdain… not even like they thought I deserved it, but just, like…" His hand slides up over the front of her dress, dragging at the fallen fabric, settling on her skin, cupping her breast as she speaks. "...Like I didn't matter. Like I was trash."

She looks down at him, and his eyes seem to flash with a sympathetic memory, and, just as quickly, the flitting light is gone. It's dark. She whispers, "I killed him for the way they looked at me." She tilts her head back and angles her hips so that his next stroke almost pushes the head of his cock inside her, but he stills.

"Not yet," he scolds, quietly, his voice a deep husk. He grips her shoulder and pulls her down. She hovers over him. It's harder to see in the dark, but she wants to. He cranes his neck up and nips at her collarbone with his teeth, close to her throat, and he bids with too much patience, "Tell me how."

"I waited for him to fall asleep, and I stabbed him."

"How many times?"

Quiet for a few seconds while she thinks, and then she decides, "At least thirty."

Levi hums. "Good." His hands squeeze her waist and push her back, pressing her opening against his cock, gently, a suggestion, permission.

She whispers against his neck, "And nobody ever looked at me like that again."

* * *

hmu on tumblr. i don't have a lot of time for writing anymore, but i bitch about it on there and i throw out random head canons and pieces of dialogue when i think of them. also it's a better place to get your questions answered. i don't check my inbox on ffnet.


	11. Gas

A/N: oddly enough, no trigger warnings for this chapter. enjoy some short, non-problematic smut.

Erna's voice rings clear just as the hiss of gas cuts short, and Levi lets gravity manage his descent to the ground.

"Do it _again_ ," she says, loud and adamant, but also distracted because she's looking down at a letter from a stack placed in her hands moments ago by a nervous recruit. She's been severe about mail lately. It can't get into her hands fast enough. Her eyes dart back and forth, skimming for information she's been waiting on for a week and a half.

Levi narrows his eyes at her from a few yards away and he deadpans, "What do you mean again?" There's a collective intake of breath. Officers and cadets alike wince and look down at their boots or the ground. He sheaths his blades. "That was perfect."

The people around them shift nervously, tension and discomfort growing with every second of silence while he stares at her. She doesn't lift her eyes from the letter in her hand, finishes scanning it, folds it in half, moves it to the bottom of the stack, and opens another envelope, swiftly ripping it across the top with her fingernail. Fifteen strained and stressful seconds pass before she finally speaks, still looking down and reading, "Sorry, I thought I was hearing things because it sounded like you were questioning me."

"You weren't even looking," he challenges and holds a defiant stance. Nearby, Farlan cringes as if this exchange is causing him actual physical pain. Even Isabel looks mildly worried.

"Well," Erna sighs, folding the second letter and tearing open another, "good to know my hearing isn't failing me."

"Do the exercise again, trainee," the supervising officer growls.

Erna's eyes finally dart upward and she glares. "Shut the fuck up, Frey. If I wanted a mimic, I'd get a pet raven to do your job."

Officer Frey, who would be an imposing man in any other context, muscular, thick-necked, and with short, straight auburn hair, blanches white and shrinks from her, eyebrows creasing like a kicked dog. Now that her full attention has been engaged, Erna tucks her mail into her jacket pocket, meets Levi's eyes, and says, "You're right, Snowflake. I wasn't looking."

The agreeable tone she's using puts some onlookers a little more at ease, but Levi knows better, and he waits steady and expressionless for the follow-up. He's familiar with her rhythm.

She narrows her eyes slightly and her voice shifts to low and dark. "I don't need to look to know what too much wasted gas sounds like. The point is to maneuver efficiently, and you're not doing it."

"Bullshit."

Despite herself, the corners of her lips turn upward in a quick, almost imperceptible facial twitch. Her eyes brighten. "Goodness," she sighs with a sarcastic inflection of awe. She beckons with a curled finger, "Bring your wounded pride over here then, Snowflake."

If she didn't know better, she would think he was just fucking around, pushing to see what he could get away with now that he's been fucking her nightly for a couple weeks, but it's definitely not that. He's sincerely offended, not fucking around, but emboldened to talk back to her because he's been fucking her nightly for a couple of weeks. Last night, he made her ride his fingers for a maddeningly long time while she _begged_ him to replace them with his cock, which, she'll grant, could blur the division of power and make it confusing as to what tone is acceptable to take with her in this situation.

As he stalks over, he growls at her, "I taught myself on stolen gear. I don't waste gas."

She tilts her head. She has, maybe, been riding him hard lately. She's been good about restraining herself and not inflicting unwarranted, insane, reactionary punishments on him. Instead, she's finally actually taken an interest in his training, which might be even worse, because her standards and expectations for him border on unreasonable, even for someone as talented as he is. She can't help it. She wants him to live through at least a few expeditions.

She'd been standing a good distance away, not fascinated or bored enough with the team's maneuver training to hover closely. The only person near her is the recruit who brought her the mail and is still waiting to be dismissed. She turns to him now and says with a sweet tongue, "You're going to want to fetch a medic," and he sprints off as Levi reaches her. Now, no one is close enough to hear her tell him, "You're pushing it."

He doesn't whisper back; he's too livid. "There's nothing to improve. This is pointless."

Erna's black brows furrow, and her eyes narrow. She raises her volume. "I'm not here to argue. I'm here to teach." With a sharp movement, she takes his handgrips from their holsters and twirls them in her fingers, then says calmly, "If you want to waste gas..." trailing off, smiling as if it's of no consequence to her, she presses and holds each trigger and waits as the gas hisses out of the tanks mounted on his blade sheaths. She keeps an eye on the meters. When the needle is a hair away from empty, she takes her fingers off the triggers.

"Do it," she orders in a deep husk, " _again_."

"Easy," he asserts, too cocky to turn down the challenge. He walks back to the trees that mark the steps of the maneuver exercise.

Erna calls after him, "Don't forget to tuck and roll when you fall," and she looks down again, takes a third unopened letter from her pocket, rips it open, and skims it. It's another reply to the correspondence she sent last week, asking her contacts for any information at all about her quickly approaching audit, mainly hunting for answers to the question "why now?" and urging some of the mildly more powerful people she's acquainted with to get a read on whether or not she should be very concerned, threatening to ruin them and take them down with her if she must.

She reads and listens for the punch of anchors, the slice of air, the hiss of expelled gas. He's still using too much. She sniffs, rolls her eyes to herself, folds another disappointingly uninformative letter, and looks up just as Levi's tank hits empty and he realizes that he isn't going to be able to reel himself in to the tree he's got his cables in.

There's routine, conventional use of the maneuver gear, and there are creative methods to make it work in unintended ways, and Levi is good at both. He maneuvers like it's second nature. That isn't her issue. Her issue, and what she's trying to show him, is that he's trigger happy, using more gas than is strictly necessary because his fingers aren't gentle enough. She doesn't care how creative he gets. Any movement, aside from braking suddenly and snapping his spine with the sudden whiplash, requires gas, so she hopes Levi remembers her comment about tucking and rolling as she watches gravity overwhelm him.

Without the compressed gas to reel the cables back in, Levi falls like a pendulum attached to a string in an arc down toward the large tree, gaining too much momentum. He is steady, not flailing or making any drastic movement at all as he seems to think. Erna already knows what he's just now realizing in the slow motion state that adrenaline causes whenever one is in danger. There are two options. He can let himself hit the tree, or he can cut the cables and hit the ground.

Eight meters is a long way to fall. In a rare occasion of empathy, Erna feels her stomach rising to her throat as she watches him plummet. Regret pierces her chest, and she wishes that she hadn't provoked him into this. She inhales and cringes but doesn't look away as it seems inevitable that he's going to hit the tree. Then, there's a flash of steel and, twirling his blades. He cuts the cables attached at his hips and lets himself fall from the lowest point of his arc, descending parallel to the tree trunk, down. He has time to twist in the air, and, when he hits the ground, his curved shoulder takes most of it, and he rolls.

Erna exhales. Her nose crinkles and her brows knit. She whispers angrily to herself, "Fuck."

When she gets to him, she has to lift Magnolia by her neck and stiff arm Church out of the way and sneer like she doesn't give a shit beyond gloating over him while she says, "Let him breathe."

She looks down and relief washes over her when she sees his eyes open.

She says, "Move your fingers." It takes him a second, but he obeys, flexing them out and curling them in. She says, "Move your toes," and sees the toe of his one boot move and then the other.

"Congratulations," she tells him as if she's indifferent, though she couldn't be more relieved. "Your spine isn't broken."

"I'm fine." He pushes up onto an elbow and grits his teeth.

Erna tenses and warns him, "If you can get up then you can do it again," hoping he'll take the hint and stay down.

He narrows his eyes at her and pushes himself up, brushing the dust off of his jacket, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, and standing with an expression of pure insolence.

"Fine," she hisses through grinding teeth. The recruit from before comes running up with a medic in tow, and Erna shouts at him, "Get him a new set of maneuver gear," and the poor brat, crestfallen, without getting a second to catch his breath, sprints off again. The medic steps forward to check Levi, but she growls at them to fuck off, and they immediately retract their hand and step back dutifully.

She reaches, detaches one of his empty tanks, throws it at Officer Frey, who doesn't react quickly enough and takes the brunt of it in the chest. Then, while he's clasping his hands to hold it, he gets hit with the second one, and, in her quiet roar, Erna orders him, "Fill those and have him repeat the exercise until they're empty again."

"That will take hours," he says in quiet disbelief.

"It will," Erna affirms, her eyes still locked on Levi's, "and you can stay with him until he's finished." She turns on her heel and begins to walk away, tossing one last order over her shoulder, "The rest of your team can have the day off. Count your blessings, fuckwits."

She busies herself with other teams, lashing out with her vindictiveness, doling out physical and mental torment in equal measures among trainees who are all but nameless, faceless drones whom she enjoys watching suffer. She reacquaints herself forcefully with the side of herself that revels in a good devastation and tries to forget whatever she just felt when she watched Levi fall and her heart pounded at her ribs like a bird trying to escape a cage.

…..

Officer Frey yawns. He casts a glance up at the moon, a slightly brighter smudge blended with the dimming silver sky, and, when Levi lands next, he says, "I'm just saying, trainee, if your finger accidentally slipped on the trigger and discharged the rest of that gas, I wouldn't tell anyone."

Levi is either ignoring him or he genuinely didn't hear because, before his heels even fully touch the dirt, he's flying up again, repeating the tedious exercise that became muscle memory hours ago. Isabel and Farlan look on, seated on the ground and leaning on each other, waiting.

It's luck when, another hour later, he finds out that his tanks are empty because he can't get off the ground and not because he's falling to it. Frey takes them and pauses, his jaw tense and the corners of his eyes wrinkled like he wants to say something but isn't sure what. He starts, "Just…" and trails off. He sighs and tiredly he says, "You weren't wrong, but… just keep your mouth shut next time." He pauses, as if giving Levi a chance to answer, but when he only receives a cold, bored look from him, he gives up, slightly slumping his shoulders as he walks off in the direction of the barracks.

Farlan's voice pipes up behind him. "Stubborn ass."

Levi turns around with a slight smirk in his eyes. He looks past Farlan's playful smile for Isabel and spots her meters away, gesturing and talking excitedly with a group of three other trainees walking to dinner. He nods in her direction and asks Farlan, "What's she doing?"

"Making friends. I told her not to, but you know how that goes."

"Keep an eye on her. She talks too much."

He unfastens the tight strap over his chest and takes a deep breath, feeling like it's the first time his lungs have been able to fully expand in hours, and walks away, eager to take off the harness that's been digging into his flesh and change into some clothes that aren't soaked in sweat. Farlan jogs to catch up to him after wavering for a moment, and he asks hesitantly, "You're not going tonight, right?"

"You keeping tabs on me instead of sleeping?"

"That's…" Farlan falters, "not a no?"

"Mind your own business," Levi growls.

Farlan shakes his head. "I don't get it."

"You don't need to," Levi bites back, though he understands the confusion. He doesn't fully get it either. He just knows that, despite how much he wants to end Erna's life sometimes, he can't stop going back for more of her. She could literally stab him, and he'd take the knife handle and twist and still want to sink his teeth into her, taste her blood, choke the sweet breath out of her pretty mouth, hold her tight and tear and rip and make her his prey and his toy. It's fucked up. He gets that. But it's like their fractured minds just happen to be on the same wavelength, and his thought structure is all tangled with hers now, getting more and more twisted every time he sinks to her depths. It's beyond sense. It's something primal that makes him sneak out of his bunk in the middle of the night, something that he can't fucking stop.

He doesn't have to kick the door in anymore. He knows that broken bolt is still hanging by a thread on the other side. He catches sight of it every morning when he sneaks out, quiet so as not to disturb his exhausted, thoroughly satisfied instructor.

He catches himself just in reaching for the handle, and he decides to do things differently for once. He turns it silently and slips inside, closes the door carefully, and presses his back to the wall as his eyes adjust to the extravagant amount of light from over a dozen candles scattered around the room, not that he would ever complain about the enhanced visibility of her lithe body and the flickering shadows that dance in accompaniment to her madness and make him feel like he's being dragged into hell.

His pulse quickens despite his stillness, and his eyes focus on her scarred shoulders while she sits at her desk naked but for a strappy, skimpy, poor excuse for a nightgown made of midnight blue silk that he expressed a preference for sometime last week. It's hemmed with lace that falls just at the crease of her ass. The color is a confusion, almost black in some levels of light and definitely deep blue or violet when she turns a certain way. It complements the pale pastels of her multitude of scars that he asks her about every night when they're finally still and satiated, and she, without fail, changes the subject.

But she tells him a little more every night, about anything else, if and when he asks her to. He's always hungry for more detail now. He can't learn enough about her, curious as to how life shapes a person like that, and maybe apprehensive that he would be even more like her if only one or two things had turned out differently, wanting to ascertain just how lucky he is that they didn't, and he is where he is with his sanity relatively uninjured.

She leans over her desk, her back to the door, unaware and fidgeting over some paper, worrying a corner of it between the restless tips of her fingers. She writes, stops, bites the end of her pencil so hard that he can hear her teeth champ the wood from where he stands, and then presses the tip to paper again.

He's never had the chance to watch with her unaware. There's something smaller about her unguarded body language, and what he's doing feels more transgressive than he expected, catching her raw and metaphorically naked, but he figures he's earned some transgressions. He watches for a moment and enjoys her rare vulnerability before clearing his throat and making her suddenly sit up straight and whip her head around, her freshly-washed, wavy curls catch the light and her eyes widen before she catches herself and applies her composed mask.

She stands and almost runs to him, cooing, "Snowfla-"

"No," he reminds her as he clutches her waist and pulls her in.

She presses a kiss to his throat, and he can feel her wicked lips curl into a smile there before correcting herself. "Levi…" She clings to him, nuzzling like she wants to get under his skin, unreservedly eager to extract the violence he always claims her with, and she says soft and diffident, "I'm sorry."

He pushes her away to where he can see her face. "What are you playing?"

She looks up at him, wounded, or faking a wounded look, he thinks. She pouts. "I'm not."

"You're sorry," he says in suspicious disbelief.

"I'm so sorry," she affirms, and it sounds sincere, but he's wary. She snakes her hands under his arms and clutches his shoulders, pulling herself into him and resting her head on his chest.

He smirks at this ardently affectionate version of her, so different from the Erna he deals with during the day, and he plays into it, running his fingers through her hair and murmuring against the top of her head, "About what?"

"You could have been hurt," she says into the collar of his shirt, raising her lips and mouthing at his collarbone, softly kissing his skin while he waits for the teeth.

Only she doesn't nip him… or scratch him… or punch him in the gut… and he thinks she might actually be sincere. He can't help but smile, and he can't help but point out, "I did get hurt..."

"Yeah, but not seriously…"

"Also," he reaches down and squeezes her ass, "you threaten to kill me daily."

"But I don't _mean_ it anymore."

"Then…" he teases her, "stop trying to?"

"It's a habit," she whines. "It's hard to break." Her fingers claw at his clean white shirt, and he feels her nails dig into the sides of his ribcage as she clings on tighter.

"I think I can break you of it," he promises in a low voice, and there's mischief in her eyes when she looks up at him with a demented little smile that he catches just a flash of before he turns her around and switches places with her, pushing her to the wall, his palm sliding up and pushing her hair out of the way so that he can sink his teeth into the back of her neck like he's wanted to since he walked in and caught her unaware at her desk.

The noise she makes is half moan, half snarl as her body undulates under his touch, moving to press against his hands everywhere they roam, begging them to apply more pressure and bruise her, making his teeth drag and scrape when her neck arches. He bites down harder until she yelps, then clamps his jaw down so that she screams for him, and only while she's howling does he let go and lean down to run his hand from the inside of her knee up her inner thigh to see how far her wetness has flowed already. Her howl subsides to a whimper, and she spreads her legs wider for him.

He doesn't rush. He slides his fingers over her slick thigh slowly and mouths against the back of her shoulder, "Let's see if you were listening."

He'd told her the night before that the pretty, expensive, hip-hugging panties, thongs, and all variation of silk, cotton, or lace separating him from her dripping sex were only a fucking annoyance. When she protested that she liked the feel of them, he stuffed the panties he'd just torn off of her into her mouth and pushed his fingers deep inside her. First, she appreciated it, then, after a few minutes, she was shaking and begging, aching to be fucked, and he made her promise to stop wearing lace barriers for him to take down every time he went to fuck her, because the half second it takes to rip them off is one more half second he could be inside her, and she nodded frantically, but it's probable that she was past the point of comprehension and was agreeing blindly to whatever would get him to finally fuck her.

"I am always," she sighs as he reaches up and finds her bare and dripping. She hisses into the back of her hand pressed against the wall, "attentive."

His finger slips between her lips and presses and twists, and he presses his forehead against the back of her shoulder while he reaches deep inside her warm cunt. He can feel his mouth fucking salivating at the thought of eating her right there, but he promised that if she was good he would fuck her up without making her wait. He has a thing for making her wait lately, seeing how wet he can get her, and feeling her muscles shake and spasm frantically with frustration. He grunts, annoyed with himself for promising anything, and, shortly after, when there's more slip and less drag, when she's arching her back and crying out in anticipation of the fucking he promised her, he adds another finger.

"You promised," she manages to whimper, and he knows what she's referring to. She isn't supposed to have to wait this time. She thinks he should be inside of her as of a minute ago.

"You're too fucking tight," he hisses, breath hot against her ear.

"You always say that." Her whining has the sound of an impending tantrum.

"Stop tensing up," he says, "and I won't have to." Every time he drags his fingers back, at the excruciatingly slow pace he's keeping, her liquid hot cunt contracts, and, when he goes to push forward again, he goes gently and by half centimeters, trying to coax her into relaxing and letting him in.

"I just…" she stops to moan as he has both fingers in to the third knuckle, "want…"

"Yeah?"

"Unhh," she whines when the fingers start to withdraw again, arching her spine and reaching back with her hips to follow them, rushing her plea out, "I just want you to fuck me," whining and drawing out the vowels of the last word, and he finds he can't wait anymore than she can. He takes his cock out quickly, strokes it perfunctorily while shifting position, and pushes between her legs, spearing inside her, not above hurting her and battering past her involuntary, habitual resistance. He gives one long thrust until he can't go any further, and he stops and savors the way she pulses and contracts around every thick inch of his cock.

Her noises are high-pitched and pained, and he briefly wonders why she does this to herself, begging him to fuck her every night before she's ready, never letting him prep her long enough before another contraction squeezes all around him, and the quick, spasmodic give and resistance triggers some undefinable animal thing in him and erases any care he has about her comfort. Endorphins buzz through him as he tangles his hand at the top of her hair and pulls her head back, pinning it to his shoulder. He turns his head and trails his tongue along her jawline, then forces it into her mouth, which is less like a kiss and more like a contest for dominance, even though she's already given that up willingly… He can never be too sure.

He can never feel reassured enough that she is his. Even just in this moment. Even when she cries his name like it's a vow.

He clamps down on the side of her neck. He sucks and bites and gnaws to give her a bruise that will grow dark and purple and make his claim on her starkly visible. She screams, and he bites down harder, but she doesn't pull away. She goads him on, reaching back and pulling him against her, leaning into the grip of his teeth and letting him maul her. She grinds herself back against him with her cunt pulsing and clenching around his deeply buried cock.

He loses himself, releases his hold on her neck so that he can put all his concentration into thrusting. She doesn't soften or let herself go, and it's like pushing into a tightly clenched fist. Her cries are turned into shallow, panting breaths and yelps. He gives in fully to the evil urges she inspires in him and thrusts harder, tugs sharply at her hair, and revels in the scream she lets out. She's in pain, and he loves it.

"You're fucking mine," he snarls at her.

And she can't help smirking to herself, arrogant and mischievous even when she's physically completely at his mercy. She mocks him, "So possessive…"

"You know it's true," he grunts, picking up a faster, more savage rhythm and finally feeling her relax for him, her cunt surrendering to the invasion and blooming like a fresh blossom, making his repeated thrusts feel less like a violation. His lips brush gentle gratitude over the bite mark.

"Yes, I'm fucking yours," she affirms, trying to sound aloof as if it's an unfortunate, annoying fact, but failing.

Her eyelashes flutter, and he can feel the tremors that always precede her orgasm, and he rushes to finish because he likes her best like this, alert and taut and insatiably hungry, the way she is before she comes. His grunts come out deep, husky and animalistic as his thrusts get erratic, and he fills every last place she needs him, pushing into her as deeply as he can, exhaling a groan from the depths of his lungs as his mind empties right along with his balls, leaving his head a complete void. She drips down his shaft like molten lead and her body melts in his arms so that he has to hold her up and keep her from sliding down the wall.

He picks her up. He's learned that if he doesn't she's apt to crumple to the floor and stay there in a daze until he does or until the afterglow wears off, whichever comes first. He puts her on the bed and takes his clothes off while she peels back the sheets and a thick blanket. He lies down, more rested and relieved of tension than he has ever felt in his life. She reminds him of a cat, ecstatically arching into his touch, curling over his lap, acting like it's the most comfortable place in the world, like she's home there, and she's his.


	12. Pantheon

They have two weeks left.

Levi collides with Erna when he opens the door. All she's wearing is a robe that he doesn't bother to take off of her, but it falls away at some point in the motion, after he fell to his knees in front of her and buried his face between her legs, but before he lifted her off the ground by her narrowed waist, held her firm to the wall, and slammed his cock inside her tight, silky cunt.

Only after he's done fucking her does he have time to take off his clothes and get in bed with her. There wasn't time for stripping down when he let himself in. He'd been locked in an internal struggle with his inner beast all day, taming it when it told him to drag her away and ruin her every time it saw her baring that blackberry bruise on her slender, pale neck. She flaunted it while acting completely oblivious as to what anyone was staring at, tilting her head to show more of the mark he'd left on the right side of her neck, daring someone to say something in front of her.

He teases her when she latches onto him, tucking into his arm and draping herself half across his chest, "What would they think if I told them how much you like to cuddle?"

"Who?"

"Anyone."

"They'd sooner believe that this bruise on my neck came from falling into a doorknob." She hooks a leg over him.

"You didn't stop me," he says.

"I told you," she says, "I don't care if anyone knows. Tell everyone if you want. Carve your name into the other side of my neck. No one will believe you anyway."

He tells her what he heard at dinner, when the other trainees felt safe enough to talk about her very obvious hickey. "Rumor is you fuck with demons you summon under the full moon."

She hums and squeezes him. She says, "Half true." Her eyes close and he lets her trail her nails with their black nail beds over his skin. She says quietly, almost as if to herself, "I only cuddle with _you_ ," and he doesn't respond. He would hope that isn't the only thing she only does with him. A beat later, she says, "I think I might care about you. I don't like it. It's uncomfortable."

It is, when she puts it like that. He doesn't know what to say. He can't deny that the admission makes him smile inside, but also the way she says it makes him wonder if he's supposed to apologize when she rises up and straddles his hips, sitting up tall, her back arched with a grace so pure it's almost regal. He doesn't return the intensity of her gaze, because his eyes travel, following her flawless form and flow of her lines.

The old man told him when he was young-ish and nearing the time when he would be left to his own devices, alone, that the maiden wall goddesses were stuffy and tame compared to what people used to worship. Levi never questioned how he knew that, because the old man had a penchant for lying when he was talking about anything but how to sharpen a knife or steal a wallet. Even he knew at that young age that every story was to be taken for an entertaining myth.

It comes back to him now. Kenny told him that before the walls there was a host of gods and goddesses, and they were a hell of a lot more fun than the wall sisters, petty and jealous and imperfect and fickle, most of them. All they demanded was sacrifice and attention, and if they got it then maybe they would favor you and maybe they wouldn't.

He thinks of it because sitting atop him, her penetrating eyes fastened to him, with the light from the candles making her skin glow, he thinks she might be one of them. A goddess of fire and ice and all things sharp, looking down on him aloof and powerful, but desperately hungry to be respected and adored and worshiped by him. He has a little of her, so little, and he craves so much. The touch of her hands on his flesh makes his blood burn black. His arm reaches up and snakes around her neck like a python. She closes her eyes as a sign of sweet submission.

He doesn't know if he'd say that he cares about her or if he believes that she really knows what caring is. He cares about his friends. Whatever he feels for her is more consumptive. He wants to own her mind and soul at deep primal levels in all of her cold, destructive madness.

He thinks that this time he's going to fuck her slow and long, but as soon as their hips slide and lock and he's inside her a darkness engulfs him. The demon in him wakens to feast on her and his hand tangles in her hair, pulling her down to tear at her neck and bite her tits. She hisses and gasps for breath that he steals with his mouth, biting at her lips and her tongue. He grabs handfuls of flesh and grips and lifts, slamming his cock inside her tight cunt again and again to see her buck. When the primal ache to rend her subsides from his jaw, he pushes her away, up again, so that he can get a good look at the goddess perched on his cock.

Convulsions and tremors rock her delicate frame and he sees her as if in a haze. The second time she comes is more violent than the first, her limbs going taut like high tension wires and her mouth opening as if she's in pain. Her breath hitches in her throat and stays there. When it's over and her entire body starts to go slack he's still slamming his hips into hers. He reaches and puts a hand to her chest to center her and feels her heart thumping as if to escape against the heel of his palm. Her head tilts back and lolls to the side like her neck doesn't have the power to support it anymore. His face twists with the effort of holding her steady while chasing his own release. He grunts and bares his teeth, but he can't come when she's relaxed like this. That's why it always feels like a race when he's fucking her. He gives up and lets her fall and she all but adheres to him, sliding her hands under his shoulders, resting her face against his chest. She wiggles off of his cunt-slick cock and laughs breathlessly, pressing her lips to his skin and teasing, "Beat you."

"You usually give me at least ten minutes to recover," he says. "I'm drained."

"Sorry," she purrs at him, "I'm stressed."

"About what?" he asks, expecting an ambiguous answer, because from what he can see, she has nothing to be stressed about. She goes around doing whatever she wants, answering to no one, the queen of her little universe here, wearing her power as if it's tailored perfectly to her small frame.

She doesn't answer. He settles and tries to ignore his swollen, aching cock while her index finger trails lightly back and forth over the straight line of bruise left imprinted on his chest after ten straight hours of maneuver training.

"How's your shoulder?"

"Hurts less than yesterday."

She says, "I was right, you know," as if she's worried about him holding it against her.

He remembers the personal insult of her questioning his abilities with the 3dm device and it at least helps take his mind off the need to get back inside her. "I don't need training," he says with certainty, not because he's cocky, though he is, but because he doesn't intend to join the Survey Corps or fight any titans.

"Expeditions are dangerous," she murmurs thoughtfully, because she doesn't know that, and she grabs at his side, suddenly and violently pressing her face to his chest like she just experienced a phantom fall.

He puts his fingers under her chin and tilts it up, forcing her to unplaster her face from his cooling skin. He changes the subject so that he won't be tempted to tell her why he is completely certain he isn't going on any expeditions. "Tell me another story."

"No," she moans. "You're going to make me run out of stories and then you'll get bored of me."

"I already have ideas for new ways to entertain myself when that happens," he says, running his hand down her naked hourglass figure. She flinches away. He retracts his hand and smirks down at her.

She suppresses the shudder of a yawn and whines. "I'm tired."

"You're lazy after you come," he says, like that's something entirely different from being tired.

"Because you make me come so hard," she purrs. "It's like dying."

"Then tell me another story and buy yourself some time before I make you get in the shower."

She smacks his chest lightly. Another time he'd been frustrated about how difficult it was to get off after she passed into the afterglow without him, he'd picked her up and put her in a cold shower. She shudders at the reminder and smiles. "You're a dick." He hums his agreement. "What do you want to hear?"

"What puts you here." She's told him a lot about her past, but there's an obvious hole in the timeline. The longer it takes her to get around to stories of anything more recent than a handful of years past, the more he wants to know what it is that bridges the gap between self-made seedy underworld ingenue to… this… whatever she is now…

"That's boring," is what she always says when he brings it up. She twists her body, folds her hands over his chest, and rests her chin on them to look up at him with her bright, cagey eyes. "Why are you so curious? Maybe I can put your suspicion to rest without getting into the whole thing."

"You hate it here," he says, but without full certainty. It's only something he's come to suspect. He can see that she's deeply unhappy, sometimes, when she drops the pretense of apathy, though he isn't certain it's because of the setting.

"Oh?" she says, her mouth an innocent little 'o'. "Do I?"

He ignores her attempt to sidetrack him into a circuitous, pointless debate. "Why do you stay?" She gives him the dangerous look that she sometimes does, that says _don't think you can just demand things_ , but he's had enough of dancing around it. He wants to know how she's here, why she stays, and whether she could be dragged away kicking and screaming if necessary.

She huffs a discontented sigh out her nose and glares at him with pouting lips.

"Why's it such a secret?"

"Because I'm not proud of being caged." Her voice has a wet sound to it and, seeming ashamed of this, she turns her head, rests her cheek on his chest and looks away. He can feel her putting miles of distance between them already, in less time than it takes him to blink.

"Did you get the same deal I did?"

"What's your deal?"

"Join the Survey Corps or get a quick trial and sentencing."

"Funny," she says, "Wouldn't have thought they would need to resort to threats to get you to leave the sewer."

"I'd rather live free in a sewer than be a hostage on the surface."

"How'd they convince you?"

"They were going to hurt my friends." He isn't unaware of her stubborn spiral outward away from the point, carefully dodging anything close to an answer without plainly refusing to tell him what he wants to know. If she gets much further from his original question he plans to put her in a cold shower again.

"I don't keep friends," she says, like they're a hobby or a pet, "but sure, same kind of deal, only I took a little more convincing."

Levi's fingers pause at a small, sunburst-like scar at her breastbone, brick red around its edges like the skin will never stop remembering how many times it bled, and it clicks. "So this -"

She hums. She guides his hand from there down to her ribs with pockmark scars like she was ground into gravel, and she says, "And this," over her abdomen with some light lines like claw marks from a rabid animal, "And this." She lets go of his hand and wiggles her fingers, "And these."

He catches her left hand, makes her fingers still, and squints. She explains, "They ripped my fingernails out and burned the nail beds."

"Why?" he growls.

"Because it hurts a lot," she says flippantly.

"No, why wouldn't you just do it?" he asks, fucking exasperated with her. "They had to torture you for _this_?" He gestures at the room, but with a wide sweep, encompassing the entire camp. "All those fucking scars because… Why? So that you could have the Southern District Training Corps to yourself? Why would you refuse that?"

Erna tilts her chin up and narrows her eyes at him, but doesn't match his growing frustrated anger. Instead she looks at him like he thinks an imperious goddess _would_ look down on a mortal and she takes his hand, turns it palm up, and starts massaging it, working out muscle knots he didn't feel until now. It feels so good he closes his eyes. Her hands working his feel more intimate than a kiss and it makes him feel less jilted about being rebuffed every time he's tried to get one out of her lately. She keeps massaging his hand, squeezing his fingers and rubbing her thumbs in upward circles over his palm. He asks again, because she hasn't answered, "Why are you here?"

"Oh, well, you know, just passing time," she answers with lyrical irony and a sarcastic little smile.

"No, you know what I mean. The whole story."

"It's boring," she says again, but this time it has the sound of a disclaimer. Then, "I mean… same reason you got picked up by the Survey Corps. I was too good at what I did." Her voice has a prim, lecturing sound. "Never be too good at anything. People notice and then they want to make you useful. It's better to be untalented or average at best."

"What were you too good at?"

"Graft," she says plainly. "Extortion. Bribery. Threats." She tilts her head back and forth in consideration. "More importantly, getting all manner of people to keep their fucking mouths shut and do what I wanted."

He knew that. After her first murder at fourteen, finding herself suddenly alone and unprotected, little Erna cared for herself by setting out to find just about every john she ever serviced to extort money from them in exchange for her silence. Then that money grew through investment in the right gambling rings, black market dealers, and drugs, but most importantly Erna traded in people and information. Her dictum is that no one can steal information from you. They can want you dead for it, but Erna was always careful to have a war chest of people between her and her victims. She used so many go-betweens and middle-men that most people preyed on by her never even knew her name or her face.

"I barely ever committed a crime myself," she points out with a little pride.

"Extortion is a crime," he counters for the sake of argument.

"Literally, sure, but have you ever seen anyone get arrested for it? It's the perfect crime. And everything else I just convinced other people to do for me. I had lackeys and goons to do the thievery and the threats and all." She lets go of his hand and reaches for the other. "I was smart about it. Never extravagant. Low profile."

"So?" Levi prods, curious about how that leads here. "Why would they want you?" He means it genuinely, and less shitty than he realizes it sounds.

"The military has a corruption problem. Soldiers are apathetic… lazy… incompetent..." she says, bending each of his fingers back gently until the knuckles pop, "From the bottom through the top ranks. It's too deep to fix with an injection of the morally righteous, so they get me, the absolute worst, to see if my methods, though questionable for this context, will work."

"And do they work?"

"I guess we'll see," she sing-songs. "If they don't, then I'm dead."

He tells her that he won't let anyone kill her, automatically, without thinking about the feasibility of keeping that promise, only knowing in his gut that he would never suffer anyone to kill her but him, and she laughs. She giggles, and through her high-pitched ringing laughter, she tells him, "Shut the fuck up. You're leaving in two weeks." She lets go of his hand and lets it fall to the mattress beside him, swinging her leg over him and sitting up to straddle his hips. "The long and short of it is, I'm supposed to make better soldiers and that's how we get military reform - the long way. Because reform the short way would result in a fucking coup, but _I'm_ fucked either way. I'm supposed to be the pet project of the Military Police, but this wasn't their idea and they would rather I didn't succeed. They benefit from things the way they are. I'm not an idiot. They're going to kill me eventually either way, and if that's the case, I'd rather have it done quickly and without the fucking pretense."

"So that's why you're stressed?" he asks while he reaches for her hips.

Her eyes flutter closed when his hands grab at her. She leans back slightly and rides the wave as he grinds up against her. She murmurs, "It's pretty fucking stressful."

"I'm the only one who's going to kill you," he promises again and gets a smirk from her like she thinks that's cute. She still doesn't believe him. Doesn't matter. He's going to get those fucking documents and bribe the right people for enough money to buy a peaceful life in the capital and he's going to find a way to make that life include her, because what even is a life without this.

Her eyelids lower. "How would you do it?"

A ghost of a smile creases the corners of his eyes. "Same way I originally planned to. Choke you until you stop breathing."

"I'd prefer the knife," she sighs, her eyes covered in a dark liquid shine. "Suffocation takes so loooong," she complains, tilting her head and her eyes back, noticeably baring her neck. "You pass out before you know you're dying."

Her voice comes out breathy, wanting, and he's unsettled by how hard it makes him, further unsettled still by how she smiles when he asks her, "So you want a single severed artery?"

"Right here," she hums, and slashes a finger slowly across where her femoral artery is hiding under the skin of her inner thigh, but he's more preoccupied with the slick sheen her finger slides over, of her sweat, his cum, thin and incandescent over her warm, pale skin. He licks his lips. She says, "If I have to die, I want to find out what it feels like to lose that much blood that quickly."

He groans and bares his teeth while closing his eyes. Her hand is grabbing at his cock now with ungentle interest. Lustful tunnel vision quiets the part of him that feels wrong getting so hard while talking about the method of her murder. One hand runs up her side, reaching for her throat. He growls, "I thought you liked being choked."

She leans down and fits her neck against his curled hand, presses with her eyes shining, and says, "I do."

His thumb curls and presses against the bruise he left on the side of her neck, leaving a white imprint that lingers after he throws her to the floor next to the bed. Sprawled at his feet, she makes a short indignant sound. He wraps a hand in her hair and growls his warning that she should stay still. He adjusts himself and when he's sitting comfortably on the edge of the bed, he pulls her to her knees, tilts her head back to look up at him and sees her narrowed eyes pricked with hate-coated lust. He pulls her in toward his cock and she makes a whiney noise, scrunches her face, curling her lip and pulling away.

The noise of the slap across her face cracks through the room. Her eyes close and her mouth opens, her chest rising and falling quickly, needy and desperate despite her pride. Her tongue slips out and he re-tangles his hand in her hair to bring her hungry mouth to his cock. He fucks her throat, making her choke again and again, pulling away to give her a break when her face is flushed and her eyes tearing only to watch her push forward, wet eyes locked on his as she continues to gag and choke herself on him. He takes some deep breaths to calm himself, releases her hair, grabs the sheets, twists them in his fingers while he watches her body jerk and convulse as it tries to fight against her determined pursuit of cutting off its air.

They beat an inconsistent and clumsy rhythm, her trying take him deep as if air is an afterthought, not a need, convulsing off of him when her body decides she's doing something impossible, and him bucking up and chasing her mouth just as she's coming back down and hitting the back of her throat, making her gag again. He loses his patience with it and takes her head in his hands again, fucks into her mouth without an ounce of sympathy for her, then pulls his cock out and holds its base. He slaps her with it and rubs it against her, smearing her cheek with her own saliva. He lets her catch it when she chases it with her mouth, but slides his hand up the shaft so that she can only suckle on the head. She whines at him, nudges her nose against his fingers, begging him to let her swallow more. He pulls his cock out of her mouth, and, gripping his shaft tight, he traces the curve of her lip with the tip. She follows it with her tongue, cute and desperate to chase it when he pulls it away again.

He doesn't want to come yet. He wants to wreck her. He wants to dull the black glint in her eyes and tame her restless, feral nature, fuck and torture her into a domesticated pet. He wants that more than he wants to come. Then, while she's trying to catch his cock in her mouth again, he sees her hand reach between her thighs, and he growls. He lifts her by her shoulders and pulls her back onto the bed, her body light and easy to toss around. He sprawls her over the mattress and looms over her. When he reaches toward her face she winces until his hand goes past her and finds the knife that's always there under the pillow, factoring more into foreplay lately than self defense. He takes her wrist in one hand and she whimpers while he pins her hand to her side, and with his other hand he rests the blade against her inner thigh and asks with an impatient, hungry growl, "Here?"

She smiles at first, relaxed and ecstatic to have him entertain her sickness, and she moans. Her thighs twitch, squeezing slightly while her back arches. He slides the blade higher, closer to her wet, swollen lips.

He can almost hear her heart beating through her chest. His eyes stay locked on the blade pressed carefully to the skin of her thigh. He can see a blue vein showing through her paper white skin, tinted with a gilded glow by the candlelight, and he thinks about the cathartic feeling of slicing flesh open. His pupils expand for him to take in all the darkness.

He caresses her thigh with the blade, turning it over, pressing the flat of it against her with his thumb. He shifts the weight along the bottom edge of it, pressing hard enough to scratch and leave a faintly pink, puffy line along her skin, carefully. She keeps this fucker sharp. His attention is ripped away from her thigh to her mouth by a whine and he catches a sight of her biting down on her lower lip, eager, maybe, or fearful. Both, he thinks. He lifts the knife and trails the tip of it lightly up her leg. He locks eyes with hers, tilts his head at her, and asks quizzically, "You scared?" because he doesn't think he's noticed her breathing for about a minute.

She swallows, nods, and says, "I like it."

He's hearing, but not really listening, and certainly not pausing to wonder why a woman who never seems to feel too much of anything would thrive on fear. The tip of the knife glides up her belly, between her breasts, and settles at her neck, goosebumps trailing its ascent. He studies every expression that flits across her face from the thirsty lick of her lips to the way her teeth sink into her bottom lip, the way she holds her breath when the knife reaches her throat, and the gasp and wince when he pushes his cock inside her wet hole.

The breath escapes her lungs in a long, relieved sigh like she's been needing this for an eternity, though not even an hour has passed since he was last inside her. The tension of fear starts to leave her and she links her ankles loosely at the base of his spine, but the thought of hurting her, the pantomime of taking her fucking life, has already filled his head with sharp thoughts. He holds himself still, feels her clench and bear down as she starts to move, flexing her legs and lifting her hips to close the minute gap between them until she feels him pressing the knife against the underside of her chin, threatening to cut if she moves another inch, and her movement ceases and her eyes snap open. He smirks at the way her expression falls, anxious eyes searching for reassurance and not finding it. He caresses her skin with the razor-sharp edge, drags it up behind her ear and slowly down her jawline, following the hollow of her neck until the point is resting in the little well between her clavicles.

Satisfied that she isn't confident in her safety, he finally thrusts forward with an abrupt snap of his hips and watches her teeth bite down on a whimper. She finds a way to arch her back and undulate her hips without letting her shoulders rise, without pressing against the knife that he isn't drawing back.

She pants and swallows while he's fucking her and the rise and roll of her throat is too much and he sees her eyelids twitch when she feels it. A small line of red appears on her skin. She seems to try to let her lungs deflate, to sink further into the mattress, but he follows. He lays his forearm across her chest, pinning her perfectly still with the knife aimed at the point of her jaw.

She asks, breathless, "Have you ever killed anyone?"

"Yes," he hisses without pausing his assault on her cunt, his bloodlust not dissipating in the slightest, brutal images flashing intrusively through his head. He sees scenes of her screaming noiselessly, bent face down on the floor, tears streaking her face. He keeps the need to make her destruction a reality on a tight leash, feeding on the energy without losing control.

"How many?" she asks with the tinge of a high, needy whine in her voice.

He can only say, "A lot." He doesn't remember the details of every kill like she does, can't recount them with glee the same way. "It's been…" he sighs, mesmerized by the sinful, ethereal glow of her skin, lulled to something like peace by the steady rhythm of his cock pounding into her, "... a lot."

He wonders about how observant she is with those keen, wary eyes, if she knows how lucky she is for the amount of self control he has, and if she can see how badly he wants her limp and broken, how much he wants to drag her outside and whip at her skin with his belt until blood seeps from her. He wants her torn and marked with bruises while she cries and pleads, her red eyes wide and full of tears while she finally accepts a fucking kiss from him.

That's what he's thinking about when his heart starts to race and he feels a rushing tightness in his abdomen. Then he feels her pulse and twitch, and he rasps, "Don't do it." She makes a high, questioning sound, no words, and he pushes the knife against the underside of her chin again. "Don't come, don't fucking breathe, not until I tell you to."

She blinks fast, bites her lip so hard the skin caught under her teeth turns from pink to white, and tries to hold back. He fucks her coarse and frantic and feels her pelvic muscles contract. She winces and whimpers, worried that he means it, that he'll really slice her throat if she can't keep herself under control. Just to be cruel and heighten the difficulty, he reaches down and rubs his thumb lightly over her clit.

She grabs his wrist - the one attached to the hand rubbing her clit, not holding the knife, which gets pressed harder against her jaw, warning her. She retracts her claws and moans helplessly. He smirks and makes a show of slamming his hips harder into hers, bottoming out, and sneering. "Don't worry, I'm close."

Her body twitches on a climax plateau. He can see her getting swallowed by the sweetest, blackest pain, moans muffled behind her clenched teeth. He brings his face to hers. She doesn't turn her head away this time, he wouldn't let her without a kiss from the knife, so she lets him press his lips to hers, achingly sweet in contrast with how hard he's fucking her. He comes deep inside her when he feels her shudder around his cock. She pleads against his mouth, babbling while he tries to lick her lower lip, begging him with, "Please," and his name over and over.

He tells her "Go ahead," and convulsions rack her body so hard he has to drop the knife to the floor to keep from accidentally letting it push too hard and cut her burning skin. He hisses and pulls back from her lips while the intense pressure of her tremors squeeze his cock. Her hips are still twitching when he pulls out. Her mouth is still open in a silent gasp when he kisses the corner of her lips and her cheek and her forehead and she starts to coo and hum and turn her face away like it's too much while she moves over and makes room for him on the bed. This time he clings to her while she lies breathless, still shocked by the magnitude of her orgasm.

While she catches her breath, he sucks another bruise onto the left side of her neck this time close to her collarbone and she sobs the way she does when he's going down on her and refuses to stop just because she's come. When she can breathe again, she grabs at his arm and pulls at it as if he isn't already holding her as tightly as possible, and she says, "I've never let anyone fuck me like that."

And he says, "Why not? You seem to enjoy it," with a devilish gleam in his eyes. If he'd had to guess he would have assumed that was the only way she knew how to fuck: violently, on a knife's edge. He likes that about her.

"I don't," she says, but quickly corrects, "I like it with you," and searches for clarity, "but I wouldn't…"

She doesn't make sense and he doesn't care.

"Once," she says, "a woman I was fucking tried to put her hands around my neck, so I put her head into the brick wall next to my bed."

"Yeah?" he says lazily.

"And another tried to be cute and slap me before I got on my knees, so I smothered her with a pillow."

"I'm noticing a common thread."

"I don't let anyone get rough with me," she says quietly, staring up at the ceiling, "but I like it when you do."

"Why?"

"I think because you mean it… and it's a little frightening."

He smiles slightly. "I wouldn't kill you."

"No?"

"I try to only kill in self defense."

"Sounds awful," she says. "I would never. Too difficult. Better to get the jump on them before they attack you or kill them later, in their sleep."

He cups her jaw in his hand and turns her face toward his. She smirks like she was only kidding, but the thing is he knows what she just said was true. He knows enough about the animal kingdom to know that physically weak things like her fight dirty for survival. It's fair. It isn't ethical by any stretch, but he'll give it to her. He kisses her lips again, without the knife this time, and she presses toward him and kisses back. His eyes are closed, but he can feel her eyelashes brushing his face while she blinks wide-eyed. He pulls away, smirks at her, and asks, "Why did it take so long to get a fucking kiss from you?"

She hums, silvery sweet and melodic, sounding so happy and satisfied for once. She says, "It just seems so… nice." The word hisses like water hitting hot iron. He squints and smiles at it, amused that nice things are to be avoided. She continues, "And I didn't want to get attached. You'll be gone soon. I guess it's too late."

"What are you going to do when I'm gone?" he asks, content to let her think that she'll never see him again, curious to see if she feels anything about it.

"Catch up on my sleep."

She yawns.

He kisses her perfect jawline again.

"Then I'm not going to feel bad about keeping you up until sunrise."


End file.
